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Variable Stiffness Actuators prove invaluable for robotics applications in unstructured environments, fostering safe interactions and enhancing task adaptability. Nevertheless, their mechanical design inevitably results in larger and…
Collaborative robots must simultaneously be safe enough to operate in close proximity to human operators and powerful enough to assist users in industrial tasks such as lifting heavy equipment. The requirement for safety necessitates that…
Antagonistic artificial muscles can decouple joint torque and stiffness, but contact transients often degrade this independence. We present a unified real-time framework applicable across pneumatic, electrohydraulic, and dielectric…
In this paper, a novel approach is proposed for learning robot control in contact-rich tasks such as wiping, by developing Diffusion Contact Model (DCM). Previous methods of learning such tasks relied on impedance control with time-varying…
Collocated tactile sensing is a fundamental enabling technology for dexterous manipulation. However, deformable sensors introduce complex dynamics between the robot, grasped object, and environment that must be considered for fine…
Modern robots embody power and precision control. Yet, as robots undertake tasks that apply forces on humans, this power brings risk of injury. Soft robotic actuators use deformation to produce smooth, continuous motions and conform to…
Compliance in actuation has been exploited to generate highly dynamic maneuvers such as throwing that take advantage of the potential energy stored in joint springs. However, the energy storage and release could not be well-timed yet. On…
The energetic optimization problem, e.g., searching for the optimal switch- ing protocol of certain system parameters to minimize the input work, has been extensively studied by stochastic thermodynamics. In current work, we study this…
Adapting upper-limb impedance (i.e., stiffness, damping, inertia) is essential for humans interacting with dynamic environments for executing grasping or manipulation tasks. On the other hand, control methods designed for state-of-the-art…
We present a novel method of optimal robust control through quadratic programs that offers tracking stability while subject to input and state-based constraints as well as safety-critical constraints for nonlinear dynamical robotic systems…
Design of robotic systems that safely and efficiently operate in uncertain operational conditions, such as rehabilitation and physical assistance robots, remains an important challenge in the field. Current methods for the design of energy…
Digital stiffness programmability is fulfilled with a heterogeneous mechanical metamaterial. The prototype consists of an elastomer matrix containing tessellations of diamond shaped cavities selectively confined with semi-rigid plastic beam…
Soft parallel robots with their manipulation safety and low commercial cost show a promising future for delicate operations and safe human-robot interactions. However, promoting the use of electroactive polymers (EAPs) is still challenging…
Soft dielectric elastomers that can exhibit extremely large deformations under the action of an electric field enable applications such as soft robotics, biomedical devices, energy harvesting among others. A key impediment in the use of…
Compliance control is an increasingly employed technique used in the robotic field. It is known that various mechanical properties can be reproduced depending on the design of the stiffness matrix, but the design theory that takes advantage…
Soft robots could bring robotic systems to new horizons, by enabling safe human-machine interaction. For precise control, these soft structures require high level position feedback that is not easily achieved through conventional…
This paper addresses the problem of computing optimal impedance schedules for legged locomotion tasks involving complex contact interactions. We formulate the problem of impedance regulation as a trade-off between disturbance rejection and…
Stroke-induced motor impairment often results in substantial loss of upper-limb function, creating a strong demand for rehabilitation robots that enable safe and transparent physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). Variable stiffness…
We present a method for system identification of flexible objects by measuring forces and displacement during interaction with a manipulating arm. We model the object's structure and flexibility by a chain of rigid bodies connected by…
This paper expounds the design and control of a new Variable Stiffness Series Elastic Actuator (VSSEA). It is established by employing a modular mechanical design approach that allows us to effectively optimise the stiffness modulation…