Related papers: Soft Lattice Modules that Behave Independently and…

Collections of simple, self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit complex, emergent dynamical behavior, with promising applications in microrobotics. When confined within a deformable vesicle, self-propelled rods cluster and align,…

In nature, a variety of limbless locomotion patterns flourish from the small or basic life form (Escherichia coli, the amoeba, etc.) to the large or intelligent creatures (e.g., slugs, starfishes, earthworms, octopuses, jellyfishes, and…

Mobile soft robots offer compelling applications in fields ranging from urban search and rescue to planetary exploration. A critical challenge of soft robotic control is that the nonlinear dynamics imposed by soft materials often result in…

Soft robotics has emerged as a promising technology that holds great potential for various application areas. This is due to soft materials unique properties, including flexibility, safety, and shock absorption, among others. Despite many…

Self-propulsion and navigation due to the sensing of environmental conditions - such as durotaxis and chemotaxis - are remarkable properties of biological cells that cannot be reproduced by single-component self-propelled particles. We…

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…

Modular robotics enables the development of versatile and adaptive robotic systems with autonomous reconfiguration. This paper presents a modular robotic system in which each module has independent actuation, battery power, and control,…

Legged robots have significant potential to operate in highly unstructured environments. The design of locomotion control is, however, still challenging. Currently, controllers must be either manually designed for specific robots and tasks,…

Multifunctional lattice materials are of great interest to modern engineering including aerospace, robotics, wave control, and sensing. In this work, we proposed and developed a new class of functional lattice materials called liquid metal…

The advantage of modular self-reconfigurable robot systems is their flexibility, but this advantage can only be realized if appropriate configurations (shapes) and behaviors (controlling programs) can be selected for a given task. In this…

Collective control of mobile microrobotic swarms is indispensable for their potential high-impact applications in targeted drug delivery, medical diagnostics, parallel micromanipulation, and environmental sensing and remediation. Lack of…

Soft materials, such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions, and biological systems, are typically multicomponent mixtures of macromolecules and simpler components (e.g., microions, monomers, solvent) that can assemble into complex…

In this paper, we introduce a design principle to develop novel soft modular robots based on tensegrity structures and inspired by the cytoskeleton of living cells. We describe a novel strategy to realize tensegrity structures using planar…

While natural systems often present collective intelligence that allows them to self-organize and adapt to changes, the equivalent is missing in most artificial systems. We explore the possibility of such a system in the context of…

Fecal incontinence, arising from a myriad of pathogenic mechanisms, has attracted considerable global attention. Despite its significance, the replication of the defecatory system for studying fecal incontinence mechanisms remains limited…

Intelligent soft matter stands at the intersection of materials science, physics, and cognitive science, promising to change how we design and interact with materials. This transformative field seeks to create materials that possess…

The transport of motile entities across modulated energy landscapes plays an important role in a range of phenomena in biology, colloidal science and solid-state physics. Here, an easily implementable strategy that allows for the collective…

Passive elastic elements can contribute to stability, energetic efficiency, and impact absorption in both biological and robotic systems. They also add dynamical complexity which makes them more challenging to model and control. The impact…

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…

Tensegrity structures are lightweight, can undergo large deformations, and have outstanding robustness capabilities. These unique properties inspired roboticists to investigate their use. However, the morphological design, control,…