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Percutaneous needle insertions are commonly performed for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes as an effective alternative to more invasive surgical procedures. However, the outcome of needle-based approaches relies heavily on the accuracy…
We propose a sensorization method for soft pneumatic actuators that uses an embedded microphone and speaker to measure different actuator properties. The physical state of the actuator determines the specific modulation of sound as it…
Climbing soft robots are of tremendous interest in both science and engineering due to their potential applications in intelligent surveillance, inspection, maintenance, and detection under environments away from the ground. The challenge…
A novel, highly flexible capacitor fiber (with 100 nF m-1 typical capacitance per length) having a multilayer periodic structure of dielectric and conductive polymer composite films is fabricated by drawing technique. The fiber is used to…
Soft robotics hold promise in the development of safe yet powered assistive wearable devices for infants. Key to this is the development of closed-loop controllers that can help regulate pneumatic pressure in the device's actuators in an…
Soft Robotics presents a rich canvas for free-form and continuum devices capable of exerting forces in any direction and transforming between arbitrary configurations. However, there is no current way to tractably and directly exploit the…
Positive-negative pressure regulation is critical to soft robotic actuators, enabling large motion ranges and versatile actuation modes. However, achieving high-performance regulation across both pressure polarities remains challenging due…
Adhesion-dependent cells actively sense the mechanical properties of their environment through mechanotransductory processes at focal adhesions, which are integrin-based contacts connecting the extracellular matrix to the cytoskeleton. Here…
Wearable and legged robot designers face multiple challenges when choosing actuation. Traditional fully actuated designs using electric motors are multifunctional but oversized and inefficient for bearing conservative loads and for being…
Response to uniaxial stress has become a major probe of electronic materials. Tuneable uniaxial stress may be applied using piezoelectric actuators, and so far two methods have been developed to couple samples to actuators. In one,…
Conformable robotic systems are attractive for applications in which they can be used to actuate structures with large surface areas, to provide forces through wearable garments, or to realize autonomous robotic systems. We present a new…
There is a growing need for soft robotic platforms that perform gentle, precise handling of a wide variety of objects. Existing surface-based manipulation systems, however, lack the compliance and tactile feedback needed for delicate…
Non-invasive therapeutic ultrasound methods, such as high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), have limited access to tissue targets shadowed by bones or presence of gas. This study demonstrates that an ultrasonically actuated medical…
Roboticists have been seeking to address this situation in recent years through the use of soft robots. Unfortunately, identifying appropriate models for the complete analysis and investigation of soft robots for design and control purposes…
Hydrogel-based soft actuators can operate in sensitive environments, bridging the gap of rigid machines interacting with soft matter. However, while stimuli-responsive hydrogels can undergo extreme reversible volume changes of up to ~90%,…
In this paper, design and development of a sensor integrated adaptive gripper is presented. Adaptive grippers are useful for grasping objects of varied geometric shapes by wrapping fingers around the object. The finger closing sequence in…
This study proposes a novel robotic gripper with variable grasping configurations for grasping various objects. The fingers of the developed gripper incorporate multiple different surfaces. The gripper possesses the function of altering the…
This paper presents a compact system, OpenPneu, to support the pneumatic actuation for multi-chambers on soft robots. Micro-pumps are employed in the system to generate airflow and therefore no extra input as compressed air is needed. Our…
Pneumatic pressure cells with thin metallic spherical diaphragm of shallow spherical shell configuration linked with vibrating wire pickup or vibrating cantilever pickup were reported in the past. In order to enhance the sensitivity of the…
Most robotic hands and grippers rely on actuators with large gearboxes and force sensors for controlling gripping force. However, this might not be ideal for tasks that require the robot to interact with an unstructured and unknown…