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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…
Wearable robotic hand rehabilitation devices can allow greater freedom and flexibility than their workstation-like counterparts. However, the field is generally lacking effective methods by which the user can operate the device: such…
We propose a mechanically simple and cheap design for a series elastic actuator with controllable stiffness. Such characteristics are necessary for animals for running, jumping, throwing, and manipulation, yet in robots, variable stiffness…
This paper introduces a novel six-axis force/torque sensor tailored for compact and lightweight legged robots. Unlike traditional strain gauge-based sensors, the proposed non-contact design employs photocouplers, enhancing resistance to…
Our goal is to make robotics more accessible to casual users by reducing the domain knowledge required in designing and building robots. Towards this goal, we present an interactive computational design system that enables users to design…
A spring in parallel with an effort source (e.g., electric motor or human muscle) can reduce its energy consumption and effort (i.e., torque or force) depending on the spring stiffness, spring preload, and actuation task. However, selecting…
This paper introduces an anthropomorphic robot hand built entirely using LEGO MINDSTORMS: the Educational SoftHand-A, a tendon-driven, highly-underactuated robot hand based on the Pisa/IIT SoftHand and related hands. To be suitable for an…
Most traditional robotic mechanisms feature inelastic joints that are unable to robustly handle large deformations and off-axis moments. As a result, the applied loads are transferred rigidly throughout the entire structure. The…
Non-prehensile planar manipulation, including pushing and press-and-slide, is critical for diverse robotic tasks, but notoriously challenging due to hybrid contact mechanics, under-actuation, and asymmetric friction limits that…
Parallel robots based on Handed Shearing Auxetics (HSAs) can implement complex motions using standard electric motors while maintaining the complete softness of the structure, thanks to specifically designed architected metamaterials.…
Springs are commonly used in wearable robotic devices to provide assistive joint torque without the need for motors and batteries. However, different tasks (such as walking or running) and different users (such as athletes with strong legs…
Fully wearable hand rehabilitation and assistive devices could extend training and improve quality of life for patients affected by hand impairments. However, such devices must deliver meaningful manipulation capabilities in a small and…
Identifying motor synergies -- coordinated hand joint patterns activated at task-dependent time shifts -- from kinematic data is central to motor control and robotics. Existing two-stage methods first extract candidate waveforms (via SVD)…
Tendon-driven continuum robots offer intrinsically safe and contact-rich interactions owing to their kinematic redundancy and structural compliance. However, their perception often depends on external sensors, which increase hardware…
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…
Highly articulated organisms serve as blueprints for incredibly dexterous mechanisms, but building similarly capable robotic counterparts has been hindered by the difficulties of developing electromechanical actuators with both the high…
Soft and soft-rigid hybrid robots are inherently underactuated and operate under tight actuator limits, making task-space control with stability guarantees challenging. Common nonlinear strategies for soft robots (e.g., those based on PD…
A robotic platform for mobile manipulation needs to satisfy two contradicting requirements for many real-world applications: A compact base is required to navigate through cluttered indoor environments, while the support needs to be large…
Underactuated robots are characterized by a larger number of degrees of freedom than actuators and if they are designed with a specific mass distribution, they can be controlled by means of differential flatness theory. This structural…
Design of robotic systems that safely and efficiently operate in uncertain operational conditions, such as rehabilitation and physical assistance robots, remains an important challenge in the field. Current methods for the design of energy…