Related papers: Vibration Improves Performance in Granular Jamming…

Soft, disordered, micro-structured materials are ubiquitous in nature and industry, and are different from ordinary fluids or solids, with unusual, interesting static and flow properties. The transition from fluid to solid -at the so-called…

Soft tissue manipulation is an integral aspect of most surgical procedures; however, the vast majority of surgical graspers used today are made of hard materials, such as metals or hard plastics. Furthermore, these graspers predominately…

For robot manipulation, both the controller and end-effector design are crucial. Soft grippers are generalizable by deforming to different geometries, but designing such a gripper and finding its grasp pose remains challenging. In this…

A theory for jammed granular materials is developed with the aid of a nonequilibrium steady-state distribution function. The approximate nonequilibrium steady-state distribution function is explicitly given in the weak dissipation regime by…

Soft robotic fingers can safely grasp fragile or variable form objects, but their force capacity is limited, especially with less contact area: precision grasps and when objects are smaller or not spherical. Current research is improving…

We study the critical behavior of low-frequency vibrations of packings with pinned particles near the jamming point. Soft modes form a plateau in the density of states and its frequency is controlled by the contact number as the ordinary…

Grasping is a fundamental skill in robotics with diverse applications across medical, industrial, and domestic domains. However, current approaches for predicting valid grasps are often tailored to specific grippers, limiting their…

Damping mechanical resonances is a formidable challenge in an increasing number of applications. Many of the passive damping methods rely on using low stiffness dissipative elements, complex mechanical structures or electrical systems,…

Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) has shown great potential in shape and force sensing of continuum manipulators (CM) and biopsy needles. In the recent years, many researchers have studied different manufacturing and modeling techniques of…

Over the past two decades, vibrational resonance has garnered significant interest and evolved into a prominent research field. Classical vibrational resonance examines the response of a nonlinear system excited by two signals: a weak,…

Contact-based vibrations play a critical role in the dynamics of granular materials. Significant insights into vibrational granular dynamics have been obtained with reduced-dimensional systems containing macroscale particles. We study…

Precessing magnetization in a thin film magnetic insulator pumps spins into adjacent metals; however, this phenomenon is not quantitatively understood. We present a theory for the dependence of spin-pumping on the transverse mode number and…

While compliant grippers have become increasingly commonplace in robot manipulation, finding the right stiffness and geometry for grasping the widest variety of objects remains a key challenge. Adjusting both stiffness and gripper geometry…

The role of entanglement in determining the non-classicality of a given interaction has gained significant traction over the last few years. In particular, as the basis for new experimental proposals to test the quantum nature of the…

We report experimental measurements on the rheology of a dry granular material under a weak level of vibration generated by sound injection. First, we measure the drag force exerted on a wire moving in the bulk. We show that when the…

Wheeled rovers have been the primary choice for lunar exploration due to their speed and efficiency. However, deeper areas, such as lunar caves and craters, require the mobility of legged robots. To do so, appropriate end effectors must be…

Matter-wave interferometry is a highly sensitive tool to measure small perturbations in a quantum system. This property allows the creation of precision sensors for dephasing mechanisms such as mechanical vibrations. They are a challenge…

Properly handling delicate produce with robotic manipulators is a major part of the future role of automation in agricultural harvesting and processing. Grasping with the correct amount of force is crucial in not only ensuring proper grip…

Fibre jamming is a relatively new and understudied soft robotic mechanism that has previously found success when used in stiffness-tuneable arms and fingers. However, to date researchers have not fully taken advantage of the freedom offered…

Grasping using an aerial robot can have many applications ranging from infrastructure inspection and maintenance to precise agriculture. However, aerial grasping is a challenging problem since the robot has to maintain an accurate position…