Related papers: Soft Tensegrity Systems for Planetary Landing and …
One of the biggest perceived challenges in building megastructures, such as the space elevator, is the unavailability of materials with sufficient tensile strength. The presumed necessity of very strong materials stems from a design…
We develop an integrated guidance and control system that in conjunction with a stabilized seeker and landing site detection software can achieve precise and safe planetary landing. The seeker tracks the designated landing site by adjusting…
Soft robots have the ability to adapt to their environment, which makes them suitable for use in disaster areas and agricultural fields, where their mobility is constrained by complex terrain. One of the main challenges in developing soft…
We study the dynamics and the optimization of the shock deceleration supported by a payload when its airborne carrier impacts the ground. We build a nonlinear elastic model for a container prototype and an elastic suspension system for the…
This paper presents a new teleoperated spherical tensegrity robot capable of performing locomotion on steep inclined surfaces. With a novel control scheme centered around the simultaneous actuation of multiple cables, the robot demonstrates…
This paper presents a sensitivity-based approach for the placement of distributed energy resources (DERs) in power systems. The approach is based on the fact that most planning studies utilize some form of optimization, and solutions to…
The objective of this thesis is to advance the understanding of complex physical phenomena through the lens of statistical physics. Specifically, it addresses two fundamental questions: What types of interactions can induce buckling of…
This paper outlines a complete methodology for modeling an on-orbit servicing mission scenario and designing a feedback control system for the attitude dynamics that is guaranteed to robustly meet pointing requirements, despite model…
We introduce collision-resilient aerial vehicles with icosahedron tensegrity structures, capable of surviving high-speed impacts and resuming operations post-collision. We present a model-based design approach, which guides the selection of…
Shell buckling is central in many biological structures and advanced functional materials, even if, traditionally, this elastic instability has been regarded as a catastrophic phenomenon to be avoided for engineering structures. Either way,…
We analyse the entanglement dynamics of the two particles interacting through gravity in the recently proposed experiments aiming at testing quantum signatures for gravity [Phy. Rev. Lett 119, 240401 & 240402 (2017)]. We consider the open…
Homogenization of the incremental response of grids made up of preloaded elastic rods leads to homogeneous effective continua which may suffer macroscopic instability, occurring at the same time in both the grid and the effective continuum.…
Grip, walk, crawl, and jump. Soft robots are integrated functional structures composed of compliant mechanisms, whose activity spans various industrial applications such as surgery, healthcare, surveillance, and even planetary exploration.…
The energy transition is causing many stability-related challenges for power systems. Transient stability refers to the ability of a power grid's bus angles to retain synchronism after the occurrence of a major fault. In this paper a…
We revisit the classic stability problem of the buckling of an inextensible, axially compressed beam on a nonlinear elastic foundation with a semi-analytical approach to understand how spatially localized deformation solutions emerge in…
Extrasolar debris disks are detected by observing dust, which is thought to be released during planetesimal collisions. This implies that planetesimals are dynamically excited ("stirred"), such that collisions are sufficiently common and…
Robots built from cable-driven tensegrity (`tension-integrity') structures have many of the advantages of soft robots, such as flexibility and robustness, while still obeying simple statics and dynamics models. However, existing tensegrity…
The problem of autonomous launch and landing of a tethered rigid aircraft for airborne wind energy generation is addressed. The system operates with ground-based power conversion and pumping cycles, where the tether is repeatedly reeled in…
An analytical model based on variational principles for a thin-walled stiffened plate subjected to axial compression is presented. A system of nonlinear differential and integral equations is derived and solved using numerical continuation.…
The cytoskeleton (CSK) plays an important role in many cell functions. Given the similarities between the mechanical behavior of tensegrity structures and the CSK, many studies have proposed different tensegrity-based models for simulating…