Related papers: Field-mediated locomotor dynamics on highly deform…
Systems consisting of spheres rolling on elastic membranes have been used to introduce a core conceptual idea of General Relativity (GR): how curvature guides the movement of matter. However, such schemes cannot accurately represent…
Robots often interact with the world via attached parts such as wheels, joints, or appendages. In many systems, these interactions, and the manner in which they lead to locomotion, can be understood using the machinery of geometric…
We study two mechanisms of locomotion of a body in an inviscid fluid, which take place without the shedding of vorticity; we consider two simple examples of robots which are able to move along a straight trajectory. The first one consists…
Collocated tactile sensing is a fundamental enabling technology for dexterous manipulation. However, deformable sensors introduce complex dynamics between the robot, grasped object, and environment that must be considered for fine…
An asymmetric two-link robot supported atop a flat platform by wheels that roll and pivot freely, but do not slip laterally, will develop forward momentum if the joint between the links is actuated internally. In particular, oscillations in…
Geometric mechanics provides valuable insights into how biological and robotic systems use changes in shape to move by mechanically interacting with their environment. In high-friction environments it provides that the entire interaction is…
Single locomotion robots often struggle to adapt in highly variable or uncertain environments, especially in emergencies. In this paper, a multi-modal deformable robot is introduced that can both fly and drive. Compatibility issues with…
We investigate the dynamical coupling between the motion and the deformation of a single self-propelled domain based on two different model systems in two dimensions. One is represented by the set of ordinary differential equations for the…
Many organisms, including various species of spiders and caterpillars, change their shape to switch gaits and adapt to different environments. Recent technological advances, ranging from stretchable circuits to highly deformable soft…
Robots still struggle to dynamically traverse complex 3-D terrain with many large obstacles, an ability required for many critical applications. Body-obstacle interaction is often inevitable and induces perturbation and uncertainty in…
Natural and artificial self-propelled systems must manage environmental interactions during movement. Such interactions, which we refer to as active collisions, are fundamentally different from momentum-conserving interactions studied in…
Robotic spacecraft have helped expand our reach for many planetary exploration missions. Most ground mobile planetary exploration robots use wheeled or modified wheeled platforms. Although extraordinarily successful at completing intended…
We explore the locomotion of soft robots in granular medium (GM) resulting from the elastic deformation of slender rods. A low-cost, rapidly fabricable robot inspired by the physiological structure of bacteria is presented. It consists of a…
Soft materials have many important roles in animal locomotion and object manipulation. In robotic applications soft materials can store and release energy, absorb impacts, increase compliance and increase the range of possible shape…
Locomotion is typically studied either in continuous media where bodies and legs experience forces generated by the flowing medium, or on solid substrates dominated by friction. In the former, centralized coordination is believed to…
Adaptive morphogenetic robots adapt their morphology and control policies to meet changing tasks and environmental conditions. Many such systems leverage soft components, which enable shape morphing but also introduce simulation and control…
Passive deformation due to compliance is a commonly used benefit of soft robots, providing opportunities to achieve robust actuation with few active degrees of freedom. Soft growing robots in particular have shown promise in navigation of…
Serially connected robots are promising candidates for performing tasks in confined spaces such as search-and-rescue in large-scale disasters. Such robots are typically limbless, and we hypothesize that the addition of limbs could improve…
Recent research on mobile robots has focused on increasing their adaptability to unpredictable and unstructured environments using soft materials and structures. However, the determination of key design parameters and control over these…
Model-based manipulation of deformable objects has traditionally dealt with objects while neglecting their dynamics, thus mostly focusing on very lightweight objects at steady state. At the same time, soft robotic research has made…