Related papers: Dynamically Reconfigurable Discrete Distributed St…
Continuum robots have gained widespread popularity due to their inherent compliance and flexibility, particularly their adjustable levels of stiffness for various application scenarios. Despite efforts to dynamic modeling and control…
Collaborative robots must simultaneously be safe enough to operate in close proximity to human operators and powerful enough to assist users in industrial tasks such as lifting heavy equipment. The requirement for safety necessitates that…
Soft robot serial chain manipulators with the capability for growth, stiffness control, and discrete joints have the potential to approach the dexterity of traditional robot arms, while improving safety, lowering cost, and providing an…
Rapid acceleration and burst maneuvers in underwater robots depend less on maintaining precise resonance and more on force--velocity phase alignment during thrust generation. In this work, we investigate constrained-layer damping (CLD) as a…
Through the implementation of reconfigurability to achieve flexibility and adaptation to tasks by morphology changes rather than by increasing the number of joints, malleable robots present advantages over traditional serial robot arms in…
Stroke-induced motor impairment often results in substantial loss of upper-limb function, creating a strong demand for rehabilitation robots that enable safe and transparent physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). Variable stiffness…
Soft composite solids are made of inclusions dispersed within soft matrices. They are ubiquitous in nature and form the basis of many biological tissues. In the field of materials science, synthetic soft composites are promising candidates…
We present an approach to overcoming challenges in dynamical dexterity for robots through tunable origami structures. Our work leverages a one-parameter family of flat sheet crease patterns that folds into origami bellows, whose axial…
Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…
A distinctive feature of quadrupeds that is integral to their locomotion is the tail. Tails serve many purposes in biological systems including propulsion, counterbalance, and stabilization while walking, running, climbing, or jumping.…
Inflatable structures used in soft robotics applications exhibit unique characteristics. In particular, the tip-extension structure, which grows from the tip, can grow without friction against the environment. However, these inflatable…
Isoperimetric robotic trusses can adapt to different tasks and environments because they have a high strength-to-weight ratio, can change their own shape dramatically, and can be reconfigured into a variety of different shapes. However,…
High-performance closed-loop control of truly soft continuum manipulators has remained elusive. Experimental demonstrations have largely relied on sufficiently stiff, piecewise architectures in which each actuated segment behaves as a…
Tip-extending soft robots that "grow" via pneumatic eversion of their body material have demonstrated applications in exploration of cluttered environments. During growth, the motion and force of the robot tip can be controlled in three…
Reinforcement-learned locomotion enables legged robots to perform highly dynamic motions but often accompanies time-consuming manual tuning of joint stiffness. This paper introduces a novel control paradigm that integrates variable…
Robots are increasingly being deployed not only in workplaces but also in households. Effectively execute of manipulation tasks by robots relies on variable impedance control with contact forces. Furthermore, robots should possess adaptive…
Although research studies in pneumatic soft robots develop rapidly, most pneumatic actuators are still controlled by rigid valves and conventional electronics. The existence of these rigid, electronic components sacrifices the compliance…
Highly articulated organisms serve as blueprints for incredibly dexterous mechanisms, but building similarly capable robotic counterparts has been hindered by the difficulties of developing electromechanical actuators with both the high…
The paper focuses on the enhanced stiffness modeling of robotic manipulators by taking into account influence of the external force/torque acting upon the end point. It implements the virtual joint technique that describes the compliance of…
Granular jamming has been identified as a fundamental mechanism for the operation of robotic grippers. In this work, we show, that soft particles like expanded polystyrene beads lead to significantly larger gripping forces in comparison to…