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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,…
In assistive robots, compliant actuator is a key component in establishing safe and satisfactory physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). The performance of compliant actuators largely depends on the stiffness of the elastic element.…
In the fields of robotics and biomechanics, the integration of elastic elements such as springs and tendons in legged systems has long been recognized for enabling energy-efficient locomotion. Yet, a significant challenge persists:…
Spider monkeys (genus Ateles) have a prehensile tail that functions as a flexible, multipurpose fifth limb, enabling them to navigate complex terrains, grasp objects of various sizes, and swing between supports. Inspired by the spider…
Limitations in actuation, sensing, and computation have forced small legged robots to rely on carefully tuned, mechanically mediated leg trajectories for effective locomotion. Recent advances in manufacturing, however, have enabled the…
When a big and heavy robot moves, it exerts large forces on the environment and on its own structure, its angular momentum can varysubstantially, and even the robot's structure can deform if there is a mechanical weakness. Under these…
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…
Spring-mass models are well established tools for the analysis and control of legged locomotion. Among the alternatives, spring-loaded inverted pendulum (SLIP) model has shown to be a very accurate descriptor of animal locomotion. Despite…
Soft robots utilizing inflatable dielectric membranes can realize intricate functionalities through the application of non-mechanical fields. However, given the current limitations in simulations, including low computational efficiency and…
To achieve highly dynamic jumps of legged robots, it is essential to control the rotational dynamics of the robot. In this paper, we aim to improve the jumping performance by proposing a unified model for planning highly dynamic jumps that…
Wearable robots are limited by their actuators performances because they must bear the weight of their own power system and energy source. This paper explores the idea of leveraging hybrid modes to meet multiple operating points with a…
We present the design of a new robotic human augmentation system that will assist the operator in carrying a heavy payload, reaching and maintaining difficult postures, and ultimately better performing their job. The Extra Robotic Legs…
Robust and energy-efficient bipedal locomotion in robotics is still a challenging topic. In order to address issues in this field, we can take inspiration from nature, by studying human locomotion. The Spring-Loaded Inverted Pendulum (SLIP)…
In the quest for electrically-driven soft actuators, the focus has shifted away from liquid-gas phase transition, commonly associated with reduced strain rates and actuation delays, in favour of electrostatic and other electrothermal…
Soft robotics is a field of robotic system design characterized by materials and structures that exhibit large-scale deformation, high compliance, and rich multifunctionality. The incorporation of soft and deformable structures endows soft…
Short lifetime under high electrical fields hinders the widespread robotic application of linear dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). Systematic scanning is difficult due to time-consuming per-sample testing and the high-dimensional…
Flapping-wing robots offer significant versatility; however, achieving efficient multi-modal locomotion remains challenging. This paper presents the design, modeling, and experimentation of a novel tailless flapping-wing robot with three…
A novel kinematically redundant (6+3)-DoF parallel robot is presented in this paper. Three identical 3-DoF RU/2-RUS legs are attached to a configurable platform through spherical joints. With the selected leg mechanism, the motors are…
Knee-less bipedal robots like SLIDER have the advantage of ultra-lightweight legs and improved walking energy efficiency compared to traditional humanoid robots. In this paper, we firstly introduce an improved hardware design of the SLIDER…
Crawling is a common locomotion mechanism in soft robots and nonskeletal animals. In this work we propose modeling soft-robotic legged locomotion by approximating it with an equivalent articulated robot with elastic joints. For concreteness…