Related papers: Muscle-inspired flexible mechanical logic architec…
The realization and study of arrays of interacting magnetic nanoislands, such as artificial spin ices, have reached mature levels of control that allow design and demonstration of exotic, collective behaviors not seen in natural materials.…
This paper investigates the structure-property relations of thin-walled lattices under dynamic longitudinal compression, characterized by their cross-sections and heights. These relations elucidate the interactions of different geometric…
Soft robots are intrinsically capable of adapting to different environments by changing their shape in response to interaction forces with the environment. However, sensing and feedback are still required for higher level decisions and…
Very recently, the construction of twist actuators from magnetorheological gels and elastomers has been suggested. These materials consist of magnetizable colloidal particles embedded in a soft elastic polymeric environment. The twist…
Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…
Physical interactive robotics, ranging from wearable devices to collaborative humanoid robots, require close coordination between mechanical design and control. However, evaluating interactive dynamics is challenging due to complex human…
Lattice structures have been widely used in various applications of additive manufacturing due to its superior physical properties. If modeled by triangular meshes, a lattice structure with huge number of struts would consume massive…
Salamander-like quadruped robots are designed inspired by the skeletal structure of their biological counterparts. However, existing controllers cannot fully exploit these morphological features and largely rely on predefined gait patterns…
Programmable materials are desirable for a variety of functional applications that range from biomedical devices, actuators and soft robots to adaptive surfaces and deployable structures. However, current smart materials are often designed…
Voxel-based structures provide a modular, mechanically flexible periodic lattice which can be used as a soft robot through internal deformations. To engage these structures for robotic tasks, we use a finite element method to characterize…
One of the important advantages of musculoskeletal humanoids is that the muscle arrangement can be easily changed and the number of muscles can be increased according to the situation. In this study, we describe an overall system of muscle…
With inspiration from arthropods' exoskeletons, we designed a simple, easily manufactured, semi-rigid structure with flexible joints that can passively damp impact energy. This exoskeleton fuses the protective shell to the main robot…
Physically intelligent micro-robotic systems exploit information embedded in micro-robots, their colloidal cargo, and their milieu to interact, assemble and form functional structures. Nonlinear anisotropic fluids like nematic liquid…
Growing energy demands of modern digital devices necessitate alternative, low-power computing mechanisms. When incident loads take the form of acoustic or vibrational waves, the ability to mechanically process information eliminates the…
It is prevalent in contemporary AI and robotics to separately postulate a brain modeled by neural networks and employ it to learn intelligent and adaptive behavior. While this method has worked very well for many types of tasks, it isn't…
Muscles of the human body are composed of tiny actuators made up of myosin and actin filaments. They can exert force in various shapes such as curved or flat, under contact forces and deformations from the environment. On the other hand,…
Robots built from soft materials can alter their shape and size in a particular profile. This shape-changing ability could be extremely helpful for rescue robots and those operating in unknown terrains and environments. In changing shape,…
Legged machines are becoming increasingly agile and adaptive but they have so far lacked the morphological diversity of legged animals, which have been rearranged and reshaped to fill millions of niches. Unlike their biological…
Animals can finely modulate their leg stiffness to interact with complex terrains and absorb sudden shocks. In feats like leaping and sprinting, animals demonstrate a sophisticated interplay of opposing muscle pairs that actively modulate…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…