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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, inspired by elephant trunks or octopus arms, offer extraordinary flexibility to bend, twist, and elongate in ways that rigid robots cannot. However, their motion planning remains a challenge, especially in cluttered…
This paper presents a method for constrained motion planning from vision, which enables a robot to move its end-effector over an observed surface, given start and destination points. The robot has no prior knowledge of the surface shape,…
Evolutionary robotics aims to automatically design autonomous adaptive morphological robots that can evolve to accomplish a specific task while adapting to environmental changes. Soft robotics have demonstrated the feasibility of…
This research considers the task of evolving the physical structure of a robot to enhance its performance in various environments, which is a significant problem in the field of Evolutionary Robotics. Inspired by the fields of evolutionary…
Nature evolves creatures with a high complexity of morphological and behavioral intelligence, meanwhile computational methods lag in approaching that diversity and efficacy. Co-optimization of artificial creatures' morphology and control in…
Recent interest in mobile manipulation has resulted in a wide range of new robot designs. A large family of these designs focuses on modular platforms that combine existing mobile bases with static manipulator arms. They combine these…
Compliant mechanisms actuated by pneumatic loads are receiving increasing attention due to their direct applicability as soft robots that perform tasks using their flexible bodies. Using multiple materials to build them can further improve…
Robot co-design, where the morphology of a robot is optimized jointly with a learned policy to solve a specific task, is an emerging area of research. It holds particular promise for soft robots, which are amenable to novel manufacturing…
Soft machines typically exhibit slow locomotion speed and low manipulation strength because of intrinsic limitations of soft materials. Here, we present a generic design principle that harnesses mechanical instability for a variety of…
We investigate optimal reachability and grasping problems for a planar soft manipulator, from both a theoretical and numerical point of view. The underlying control model describes the evolution of the symmetry axis of the device, which is…
Operating robots precisely and at high speeds has been a long-standing goal of robotics research. Balancing these competing demands is key to enabling the seamless collaboration of robots and humans and increasing task performance. However,…
Recent advancements in soft actuators have enabled soft continuum swimming robots to achieve higher efficiency and more closely mimic the behaviors of real marine animals. However, optimizing the design and control of these soft continuum…
Planning the motion path for a tightly coupled dual-arm space manipulator under closed-chain constraints is a fundamental yet challenging problem in on-orbit assembly of large-scale space structures. The closed-chain constraints…
We present a centralized algorithmic framework for solving multi-robot path planning problems in general, two-dimensional, continuous environments while minimizing globally the task completion time. The framework obtains high levels of…
This paper presents a novel distributed robust optimization scheme for steering distributions of multi-agent systems under stochastic and deterministic uncertainty. Robust optimization is a subfield of optimization which aims to discover an…
The internal structure of the Fin-Ray fingers plays a significant role in their adaptability and grasping performance. However, modeling the grasp force and deformation behavior for design purposes is challenging. When the Fin-Ray finger…
Research on the co-optimization of soft robotic design and control requires rapid means for real-world validation. Existing creation pipelines do not allow for the swift prototyping of soft robots to quickly test various design…
Aerial robots have garnered significant attention due to their potential applications in various industries, such as inspection, search and rescue, and drone delivery. Successful missions often depend on the ability of these robots to grasp…
Microrobotics is an attractive area of research as small-scale robots have the potential to improve the precision and dexterity offered by minimally invasive surgeries. One example of such a tool is a pair of micro-surgical scissors that…