Related papers: Hybrid Soft Robots Incorporating Soft and Stiff El…
Soft robotics has emerged as a transformative technology in Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, addressing challenges in navigating complex, hazardous environments that often limit traditional rigid robots. This paper critically examines…
This paper describes RHP Friends, a social humanoid robot developed to enable assistive robotic deployments in human-coexisting environments. As a use-case application, we present its potential use in nursing by extending its capabilities…
While soft robot manipulators offer compelling advantages over rigid counterparts, including inherent compliance, safe human-robot interaction, and the ability to conform to complex geometries, accurate forward modeling from low-dimensional…
This paper presents the application of a learning control approach for the realization of a fast and reliable pick-and-place application with a spherical soft robotic arm. The arm is characterized by a lightweight design and exhibits…
Soft robotics has been a trending topic within the robotics community for almost two decades. However, available tools for the modeling and analysis of soft robots are still limited. This paper introduces a user-friendly MATLAB toolbox,…
Although wheeled robots have been predominant for planetary exploration, their geometry limits their capabilities when traveling over steep slopes, through rocky terrains, and in microgravity. Legged robots equipped with grippers are a…
A key challenge in robotics is to create efficient methods for grasping objects with diverse shapes, sizes, poses, and properties. Grasping with hand-like end effectors often requires careful selection of hand orientation and finger…
The Industry 4.0 paradigm emphasizes the crucial benefits that collaborative robots, i.e., robots able to work alongside and together with humans, could bring to the whole production process. In this context, an enabling technology yet…
Voxel-based soft robots (VSRs) are aggregations of soft blocks whose design is amenable to optimization. We here present a software, 2D-VSR-Sim, for facilitating research concerning the optimization of VSRs body and brain. The software,…
Cosserat rod theory is the popular approach to modeling ferromagnetic soft robots as 1-Dimensional (1D) slender structures in most applications, such as biomedical. However, recent soft robots designed for locomotion and manipulation often…
Realizing high-performance soft robotic grippers is challenging because of the inherent limitations of the soft actuators and artificial muscles that drive them, including low force output, small actuation range, and poor compactness.…
Current aerial robots demonstrate limited interaction capabilities in unstructured environments when compared with their biological counterparts. Some examples include their inability to tolerate collisions and to successfully land or perch…
The human brain's plasticity allows for the integration of artificial body parts into the human body. Leveraging this, embodied systems realize intuitive interactions with the environment. We introduce a novel concept: embodied swarm…
Soft robotics has emerged as the standard solution for grasping deformable objects, and has proven invaluable for mobile robotic exploration in extreme environments. However, despite this growth, there are no widely adopted computational…
The design of physical compliance -- its location, degree, and structure -- affects robot performance and robustness in contact-rich tasks. While compliance is often used in the robot's joints, flange, or end-effector, this paper proposes…
Conventional industrial robots often use two-fingered grippers or suction cups to manipulate objects or interact with the world. Because of their simplified design, they are unable to reproduce the dexterity of human hands when manipulating…
Soft machines are poised to deliver significant real-world impact, with soft robotics emerging as a key sub-discipline. This field integrates biological inspiration, materials science, and embodied intelligence to create bio-robotic…
Machines that mimic humans have inspired scientists for centuries. Bio-inspired soft robotic hands are a good example of such an endeavor, featuring intrinsic material compliance and continuous motion to deal with uncertainty and adapt to…
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…
Soft pneumatic legged robots show promise in their ability to traverse a range of different types of terrain, including natural unstructured terrain met in applications like precision agriculture. They can adapt their body morphology to the…