Related papers: Field-mediated locomotor dynamics on highly deform…
Controlling robots that dynamically engage in contact with their environment is a pressing challenge. Whether a legged robot making-and-breaking contact with a floor, or a manipulator grasping objects, contact is everywhere. Unfortunately,…
Continuum and soft robots can leverage complex actuator shapes to take on useful shapes while actuating only a few of their many degrees of freedom. Continuum robots that also grow increase the range of potential shapes that can be actuated…
Understanding the physical interaction with wearable robots is essential to ensure safety and comfort. However, this interaction is complex in two key aspects: (1) the motion involved, and (2) the non-linear behaviour of soft tissues.…
The ability to efficiently and effectively explore planetary surfaces is currently limited by the capability of wheeled rovers to traverse challenging terrains, and by pre-programmed data acquisition plans with limited in-situ flexibility.…
We present an open-source untethered quadrupedal soft robot platform for dynamic locomotion (e.g., high-speed running and backflipping). The robot is mostly soft (80 vol.%) while driven by four geared servo motors. The robot's soft body and…
Faced with strong demand for robots working in underwater pipeline environments, a novel underwater multi-model locomotion robot is designed and studied in this research. By mimicking the earthworm's metameric body, the robot is segmented…
The dynamical properties of tensegrity robots give them appealing ruggedness and adaptability, but present major challenges with respect to locomotion control. Due to high-dimensionality and complex contact responses, data-driven approaches…
Deformable object manipulation (DOM) is an emerging research problem in robotics. The ability to manipulate deformable objects endows robots with higher autonomy and promises new applications in the industrial, services, and healthcare…
Soft growing robots, commonly referred to as vine robots, have demonstrated remarkable ability to interact safely and robustly with unstructured and dynamic environments. It is therefore natural to exploit contact with the environment for…
This paper presents a computational model of the processing of dynamic spatial relations occurring in an embodied robotic interaction setup. A complete system is introduced that allows autonomous robots to produce and interpret dynamic…
Planetary exploration missions require robots capable of navigating extreme and unknown environments. While wheeled rovers have dominated past missions, their mobility is limited to traversable surfaces. Legged robots, especially…
Legged robots face significant challenges in moving and navigating on deformable and highly yielding terrain such as mud. We present a resistive force model for legged foot-mud interactions. The model captures rheological behaviors such as…
Real-life control tasks involve matters of various substances---rigid or soft bodies, liquid, gas---each with distinct physical behaviors. This poses challenges to traditional rigid-body physics engines. Particle-based simulators have been…
Exploration of extreme or remote environments such as Mars is often recognized as an opportunity for multi-robot systems. However, this poses challenges for maintaining robust inter-robot communication without preexisting infrastructure. It…
Manipulating deformable objects arises in daily life and numerous applications. Despite phenomenal advances in industrial robotics, manipulation of deformable objects remains mostly a manual task. This is because of the high number of…
This paper introduces a novel approach for modeling the dynamics of soft robots, utilizing a differentiable filter architecture. The proposed approach enables end-to-end training to learn system dynamics, noise characteristics, and temporal…
When walking on loose terrains, possibly covered with vegetation, the ground and grass should deform, but the character's gait should also change accordingly. We propose a method for modeling such two-ways interactions in real-time. We…
Soft pneumatic legged robots show promise in their ability to traverse a range of different types of terrain, including natural unstructured terrain met in applications like precision agriculture. They can adapt their body morphology to the…
Conventional mobile tensegrity robots constructed with straight links offer mobility at the cost of locomotion speed. While spherical robots provide highly effective rolling behavior, they often lack the stability required for navigating…
Soft robots are distinguished by their flexibility and adaptability, allowing them to perform nearly impossible tasks for rigid robots. However, controlling their behavior is challenging due to their nonlinear material response and infinite…