Related papers: Dynamically Reconfigurable Discrete Distributed St…
Humanoid robots may require a degree of compliance at the joint level for improving efficiency, shock tolerance, and safe interaction with humans. The presence of joint elasticity, however, complexifies the design of balancing and walking…
Piping inspection robots play an essential role for industries as they can reduce human effort and pose a lesser risk to their lives. Generally, the locomotion techniques of these robots can be classified into mechanical and bioinspired. By…
Positive-negative pressure regulation is critical to soft robotic actuators, enabling large motion ranges and versatile actuation modes. However, achieving high-performance regulation across both pressure polarities remains challenging due…
Robotic control systems are increasingly relying on distributed feedback controllers to tackle complex sensing and decision problems such as those found in highly articulated human-centered robots. These demands come at the cost of a…
Wheeled-legged robots combine the efficiency of wheeled robots when driving on suitably flat surfaces and versatility of legged robots when stepping over or around obstacles. This paper introduces a planning and control framework to realise…
This paper presents an interaction control algorithm for a dielectric elastomer membrane actuator. The proposed method permits efficient exploitation of the controllable stiffness of the material, allowing to use the membrane as a…
Locomotion on dynamic rigid surface (i.e., rigid surface accelerating in an inertial frame) presents complex challenges for controller design, which are essential for deploying humanoid robots in dynamic real-world environments such as…
An accurate, physically-based, and differentiable model of soft robots can unlock downstream applications in optimal control. The Finite Element Method (FEM) is an expressive approach for modeling highly deformable structures such as…
Soft robotics is attractive for wearable applications that require conformal interactions with the human body. Soft wearable robotic garments hold promise for supplying dynamic compression or massage therapies, such as are applied for…
There is a growing need for robots that can change their shape, size and mechanical properties to adapt to evolving tasks and environments. However, current shape-changing systems generally utilize bespoke, system-specific mechanisms that…
Reconfigurable robots refer to a category of robots that their components (individual joints and links) can be assembled in multiple configurations and geometries. Most of existing latching mechanisms are based on physical tools such as…
We study the mechanical stiffening behavior in two-dimensional (2D) cross-linked networks of semiflexible biopolymer filaments under simple shear. Filamental constituents immersed in a fluid undergo thermally excited bending motions.…
Robotic manipulators, traditionally designed with classical joint-link articulated structures, excel in industrial applications but face challenges in human-centered and general-purpose tasks requiring greater dexterity and adaptability. To…
This paper presents a Load-Based Variable Transmission (LBVT) mechanism designed to enhance robotic actuation by dynamically adjusting the transmission ratio in response to external torque demands. Unlike existing variable transmission…
An impedance-based control scheme is introduced for cooperative manipulators grasping a rigid load. The position and orientation of the load are to be maintained close to a desired trajectory, trading off tracking accuracy by low energy…
This work proposes a fully decentralized strategy for maintaining the formation rigidity of a multi-robot system using only range measurements, while still allowing the graph topology to change freely over time. In this direction, a first…
Granular jamming is a popular soft robotics technology that has seen recent widespread applications including industrial gripping, surgical robotics and haptics. However, to date the field has not fully exploited the fundamental science of…
In robot swarms operating under highly restrictive sensing and communication constraints, individuals may need to use direct physical proximity to facilitate information exchange. However, in certain task-related scenarios, this requirement…
This paper presents a novel, modular, cable-driven soft robotic arm featuring multi-segment reconfigurability. The proposed architecture enables a stackable system with independent segment control, allowing scalable adaptation to diverse…
Pipelines, vital for fluid transport, pose an important yet challenging inspection task, particularly in small, flexible biological systems, that robots have yet to master. In this study, we explored the development of an innovative robot…