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Continuum arms, such as trunk and tentacle robots, lie between the two extremities of rigid and soft robots and promise to capture the best of both worlds in terms of manipulability, dexterity, and compliance. This paper proposes a new…
Humans possess a remarkable ability to react to unpredictable perturbations through immediate mechanical responses, which harness the visco-elastic properties of muscles to maintain balance. Inspired by this behaviour, we propose a novel…
Soft-growing robots (i.e., vine robots) are a promising class of soft robots that allow for navigation and growth in tightly confined environments. However, these robots remain challenging to model and control due to the complex interplay…
It is shown that a compound elastic structure, which displays a dynamic instability, may be designed as the union (or 'fusion') of two structures which are stable when separately analyzed. The compound elastic structure has two degrees of…
Extreme deformation can drastically morph a structure from one structural form into another. Programming such deformation properties into the structure is often challenging and in many cases an impossible task. The morphed forms do not hold…
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…
Recently, suction-based robotic systems with microscopic features or active suction components have been proposed to grip rough and irregular surfaces. However, sophisticated fabrication methods or complex control systems are required for…
Soft everting robots present significant advantages over traditional rigid robots, including enhanced dexterity, improved environmental interaction, and safe navigation in unpredictable environments. While soft everting robots have been…
Soft robots, compared to rigid robots, possess inherent advantages, including higher degrees of freedom, compliance, and enhanced safety, which have contributed to their increasing application across various fields. Among these benefits,…
This paper explores the design strategies for hybrid pole- or trunk-climbing robots, focusing on methods to inform design decisions and assess metrics such as adaptability and performance. A wheeled-grasping hybrid robot with modular,…
In this article, we present a mechanism and related path planning algorithm to construct light-duty barriers out of extruded, inflated tubes weaved around existing environmental features. Our extruded tubes are based on everted vine-robots…
Motivated by a high demand for automated inspection of civil infrastructure, this work presents a new design and development of a tank-like robot for structural health monitoring. Unlike most existing magnetic wheeled mobile robot designs,…
Back injuries are the most prevalent work-related musculoskeletal disorders and represent a major cause of disability. Although innovations in wearable robots aim to alleviate this hazard, the majority of existing exoskeletons are obtrusive…
Networks of rigid bars connected by joints, termed linkages, provide a minimal framework to design robotic arms and mechanical metamaterials built out of folding components. Here, we investigate a chain-like linkage that, according to…
Soft elastic filaments that can be stretched, bent and twisted exhibit a range of topologically and geometrically complex morphologies that include plectonemes, solenoids, knot-like and braid-like structures. We combine numerical…
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…
Legged locomotion is a highly promising but under-researched subfield within the field of soft robotics. The compliant limbs of soft-limbed robots offer numerous benefits, including the ability to regulate impacts, tolerate falls, and…
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…
We propose a combined method for the collaborative transportation of a suspended payload by a team of rotorcraft. A recent distance-based formation-motion control algorithm based on assigning distance disagreements among robots generates…
This paper introduces a novel design method that enhances the force/torque, bendability, and controllability of soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs). The complex structure of the soft actuator is simplified by approximating it as a cantilever…