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Soft, slender structures are ubiquitous in natural and engineered systems, with broad application potential from biomimetic materials to soft robotics. However, there is a notable lack of computational tools that simultaneously preserve…

Continuum soft robots are mechanical systems entirely made of continuously deformable elements. This design solution aims to bring robots closer to invertebrate animals and soft appendices of vertebrate animals (e.g., an elephant's trunk, a…

Soft Robots distinguish themselves from traditional robots by embracing flexible kinematics. Because of their recent emergence, there exist numerous uncharted territories, including novel actuators, manufacturing processes, and advanced…

Living organisms intertwine soft (e.g., muscle) and hard (e.g., bones) materials, giving them an intrinsic flexibility and resiliency often lacking in conventional rigid robots. The emerging field of soft robotics seeks to harness these…

Many soft-body organisms found in nature flourish underwater. Similarly, soft robots are potentially well-suited for underwater environments partly because the problematic effects of gravity, friction, and harmonic oscillations are less…

Traditional robots have rigid links and structures that limit their ability to interact with the dynamics of their immediate environment. For example, conventional robot manipulators with rigid links can only manipulate objects using…

Soft robots offer more flexibility, compliance, and adaptability than traditional rigid robots. They are also typically lighter and cheaper to manufacture. However, their use in real-world applications is limited due to modeling challenges…

Soft robotic manipulators offer operational advantage due to their compliant and deformable structures. However, their inherently nonlinear dynamics presents substantial challenges. Traditional analytical methods often depend on simplifying…

Soft robots are made of compliant materials and perform tasks that are challenging for rigid robots. However, their continuum nature makes it difficult to develop model-based control strategies. This work presents a robust model-based…

While much work has been done recently in the realm of model-based control of soft robots and soft-rigid hybrids, most works examine robots that have an inherently serial structure. While these systems have been prevalent in the literature,…

This paper presents the application of a learning control approach for the realization of a fast and reliable pick-and-place application with a spherical soft robotic arm. The arm is characterized by a lightweight design and exhibits…

Soft robotics has advanced rapidly, yet its control methods remain fragmented: different morphologies and actuation schemes still require task-specific controllers, hindering theoretical integration and large-scale deployment. A generic…

While rigid robots are extensively used in various applications, they are limited in the tasks they can perform and can be unsafe in close human-robot interactions. Soft robots on the other hand surpass the capabilities of rigid robots in…

Control of soft robotic manipulators remains a challenge for designs with advanced capabilities and novel actuation. Two significant limitations are multi-axis, three-dimensional motion of soft bodies alongside actuator dynamics and…

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…

Obtaining dynamic models of continuum soft robots is central to the analysis and control of soft robots, and researchers have devoted much attention to the challenge of proposing both data-driven and first-principle solutions. Both avenues…

Soft robots manufactured with flexible materials can be highly compliant and adaptive to their surroundings, which facilitates their application in areas such as dexterous manipulation and environmental exploration. This paper aims at…

Torque and continuous rotation are fundamental methods of actuation and manipulation in rigid robots. Soft robot arms use soft materials and structures to mimic the passive compliance of biological arms that bend and extend. This use of…

Passive elastic elements can contribute to stability, energetic efficiency, and impact absorption in both biological and robotic systems. They also add dynamical complexity which makes them more challenging to model and control. The impact…

Soft robots show compliance and have infinite degrees of freedom. Thanks to these properties, such robots can be leveraged for surgery, rehabilitation, biomimetics, unstructured environment exploring, and industrial grippers. In this case,…