Related papers: Soft robotic shell with active thermal display
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…
Many organisms, including various species of spiders and caterpillars, change their shape to switch gaits and adapt to different environments. Recent technological advances, ranging from stretchable circuits to highly deformable soft…
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…
This work presents a method of incorporating low-cost capacitive tactile sensors on a soft socially assistive robot platform. By embedding conductive thread into the robot's crocheted exterior, we formed a set of low-cost, flexible…
Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…
The ocean vast unexplored regions and diverse soft-bodied marine organisms have spurred interest in bio-inspired underwater soft robotics. Recent advances have enabled new capabilities in underwater movement, sensing, and interaction.…
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,…
In this project, we focus on human-robot interaction in caregiving scenarios like bathing, where physical contact is inevitable and necessary for proper task execution because force must be applied to the skin. Using finite element…
Incorporating effective tactile sensing and mechanical compliance is key towards enabling robust and safe operation of robots in unknown, uncertain and cluttered environments. Towards realizing this goal, we present a lightweight,…
Soft robotics technology can aid in achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement through development of autonomous, environmentally responsible machines powered by renewable energy. By…
Although soft robots show safer interactions with their environment than traditional robots, soft mechanisms and actuators still have significant potential for damage or degradation particularly during unmodeled contact. This article…
As soft robot design matures, researchers have converged to sophisticated design paradigms to enable the development of more suitable platforms. Two such paradigms are soft-rigid hybrid robots, which utilize rigid structural materials in…
Due to their ability to move without sliding relative to their environment, soft growing robots are attractive for deploying distributed sensor networks in confined spaces. Sensing of the state of such robots would also add to their…
Soft robotics focuses on designing robots with highly deformable materials, allowing them to adapt and operate safely and reliably in unstructured and variable environments. While soft robots offer increased compliance over rigid body…
Soft robots have demonstrated superior flexibility and functionality than conventional rigid robots. These versatile devices can respond to a wide range of external stimuli (including light, magnetic field, heat, electric field, etc.), and…
Humans can leverage physical interaction to teach robot arms. As the human kinesthetically guides the robot through demonstrations, the robot learns the desired task. While prior works focus on how the robot learns, it is equally important…
As more robots are implemented for contact-rich tasks, tactile sensors are in increasing demand. For many circumstances, the contact is required to be compliant, and soft sensors are in need. This paper introduces a novelly designed soft…
Soft actuators have drawn significant attention from researchers with an inherently compliant design to address the safety issues in physical human-robot interactions. However, they are also vulnerable and pose new challenges in the design,…
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…
Robots can support humans in tedious tasks, as well as provide social support. However, the decision-making and behavior of robots is not always clear to the human interaction partner. In this work, we discuss the opportunity of using…