Related papers: Elastica: A compliant mechanics environment for so…

This paper presents the design, control, and applications of a multi-segment soft robotic arm. In order to design a soft arm with large load capacity, several design principles are proposed by analyzing two kinds of buckling issues, under…

Common disabilities like stroke and spinal cord injuries may cause loss of motor function in hands. They can be treated with robot assisted rehabilitation techniques, like continuously opening and closing the hand with help of a robot, in a…

Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…

It is desired to equip robots with the capability of interacting with various soft materials as they are ubiquitous in the real world. While physics simulations are one of the predominant methods for data collection and robot training,…

This work provides a complete framework for the simulation, co-optimization, and sim-to-real transfer of the design and control of soft legged robots. The compliance of soft robots provides a form of "mechanical intelligence" -- the ability…

We introduce SoftMimic, a framework for learning compliant whole-body control policies for humanoid robots from example motions. Imitating human motions with reinforcement learning allows humanoids to quickly learn new skills, but existing…

Compliance is a strong requirement for human-robot interactions. Soft-robots provide an opportunity to cover the lack of compliance in conventional actuation mechanisms, however, the control of them is very challenging given their intrinsic…

Simulating deformable objects under rich interactions remains a fundamental challenge for real-to-sim robot manipulation, with dynamics jointly driven by environmental effects and robot actions. Existing simulators rely on predefined…

The ability of a soft robot to perform specific tasks is determined by its contact configuration, and transitioning between configurations is often necessary to reach a desired position or manipulate an object. Based on this observation, we…

Many physical systems can be modelled as parameter-dependent variational problems. In numerous cases, multiple equilibria co-exist, requiring the evaluation of their stability, and the monitoring of transitions between them. Generally, the…

Soft robots are known for their ability to perform tasks with great adaptability, enabled by their distributed, non-uniform stiffness and actuation. Bending is the most fundamental motion for soft robot design, but creating robust, and…

This paper introduces a new type of soft continuum robot, called SCoReS, which is capable of self-controlling continuously its curvature at the segment level; in contrast to previous designs which either require external forces or machine…

Soft robots have immense potential given their inherent safety and adaptability, but challenges in soft actuator forces and design constraints have limited scaling up soft robots to larger sizes. Electrothermal shape memory alloy (SMA)…

Soft robotics has emerged as a promising technology that holds great potential for various application areas. This is due to soft materials unique properties, including flexibility, safety, and shock absorption, among others. Despite many…

Ensuring safety is of paramount importance in physical human-robot interaction applications. This requires both adherence to safety constraints defined on the system state, as well as guaranteeing compliant behavior of the robot. If the…

Soft robots are inherently compliant and have a strong potential to realize human-friendly and safe robots. Despite continued research highlighting the potential of soft robots, they remain largely confined to laboratory settings. In this…

Reconfigurable robot swarms are capable of connecting with each other to form complex structures. Current mechanical or magnetic connection mechanisms can be complicated to manufacture, consume high power, have a limited load-bearing…

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…

Intrinsically elastic robots surpass their rigid counterparts in a range of different characteristics. By temporarily storing potential energy and subsequently converting it to kinetic energy, elastic robots are capable of highly dynamic…

Contact-rich manipulation tasks in unstructured environments pose significant robustness challenges for robot learning, where unexpected collisions can cause damage and hinder policy acquisition. Existing soft end-effectors face fundamental…