Related papers: Thermodynamically-informed Air-based Soft Heat Eng…

Soft electrothermal actuators are of great interest in diverse application domains for their simplicity, compliance, and ease of control. However, the very nature of thermally induced mechanical actuation sets inherent operation…

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…

We introduce an alternative route for obtaining reliable cyclic engines, based on interacting Brownian particles under time-periodic drivings. General expressions for the thermodynamic fluxes, such as power and heat, are obtained using the…

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…

The robotics community has seen an exponential growth in the level of complexity of the theoretical tools presented for the modeling of soft robotics devices. Different solutions have been presented to overcome the difficulties related to…

Under a general framework, shortcuts to adiabatic processes are shown to be possible in classical systems. We then study the distribution function of the work done on a small system initially prepared at thermal equilibrium. It is found…

A quantum Otto engine based on a three-dimensional harmonic oscillator is proposed. One of the modes of this oscillator functions as the working fluid, while the other two play the role of baths. The coupling between the working fluid and…

We propose and analyse an autonomous engine, which combines ideas from electronic transport and self-oscillating heat engines. It is based on the electron-shuttling mechanism in conjunction with a rotational degree of freedom. We focus in…

We propose a scheme for a single-atom quantum heat engine based on ultra-cold atom technologies. Building on the high degree of control typical of cold atom systems, we demonstrate that three paradigmatic heat engines -- Carnot, Otto and…

We present a computational design system that assists users to model, optimize, and fabricate quad-robots with soft skins.Our system addresses the challenging task of predicting their physical behavior by fully integrating the multibody…

Flexible robots have advantages over rigid robots in their ability to conform physically to their environment and to form a wide variety of shapes. Sensing the force applied by or to flexible robots is useful for both navigation and…

Soft robot arms have made significant progress towards completing human-scale tasks, but designing arms for tasks with specific load and workspace requirements remains difficult. A key challenge is the lack of model-based design tools,…

We study the performance of a quantum Otto cycle using a harmonic work medium and undergoing collisional dynamics with finite-size reservoirs. We span the dynamical regimes of the work strokes from strongly non-adiabatic to quasi-static…

Modern technologies could soon make it possible to investigate the operation cycles of quantum heat engines by counting the photons that are emitted and absorbed by their working systems. Using the quantum jump approach to open-system…

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…

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,…

Quantization of energy is a quintessential characteristic of quantum systems. Here we analyze its effects on the operation of Otto cycle heat machines and show that energy quantization alone may alter and increase machine performance in…

Certain solutions of Einstein's equations in anti-de Sitter spacetime can be engineered, using extended gravitational thermodynamics, to yield `holographic heat engines', devices that turn heat into useful mechanical work. On the other…

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…

The ignition of flammable liquids and gases in offshore oil and gas environments is a major risk and can cause loss of life, serious injury, and significant damage to infrastructure. Power supplies that are used to provide regulated…