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Origami structures have been receiving a lot of attention from engineering and scientific researchers owing to their unique properties such as deployability, multi-stability, negative stiffness, etc. However, dynamic properties of origami…
Capsule robots are promising tools for minimally invasive diagnostics and therapy, with applications from gastrointestinal endoscopy to targeted drug delivery and biopsy sampling. Conventional magnetic capsule robots embed bulky permanent…
Magnetic elastomers deform under a magnetic field, working as a soft actuator. Untethered microbot made of magnetic elastomers have great potentials in performing medical tasks inside human body as mini doctors. However, the lack of a…
In this paper, we present an approach to study the behavior of compliant plates in granular media and optimize the performance of a robot that utilizes this technique for mobility. From previous work and fundamental tests on thin plate…
The current understanding of motility through body shape deformation of microorganisms and the knowledge of fluid flows at the microscale provides ample examples for mimicry and design of soft microrobots. In this work, a two-dimensional…
Exploration of various applications is the frontier of research on inflatable robots. We proposed an articulated robots consisting of multiple pneumatic bladder links connected by rolling contact joints called Hillberry joints. The bladder…
UMI-style interfaces enable scalable robot learning, but existing systems remain largely visuomotor, relying primarily on RGB observations and trajectory while providing only limited access to physical interaction signals. This becomes a…
The Japanese art of turning flat sheets into 3D intricate structures, origami, has inspired design of mechanical metamaterials. Mechanical metamaterials are artificially engineered materials with uncommon properties. Miura-ori is a…
A long-standing challenge in impact mitigation is the development of versatile and omnifarious protective structures capable of encompassing a wide spectrum of scenarios, for example, ranging from low-speed pedestrian impacts to high-speed…
Eating is a daily challenge for over 60 million adults with essential tremors and other mobility limitations. For these users, traditional utensils like forks or spoons are difficult to manipulate -- resulting in accidental spills and…
Multirotor aerial robots excel at maneuvering in three-dimensional space, and recent advances enable nimble navigation in cluttered and confined environments, especially for small airframes. By contrast, platforms built for high-altitude…
Collective control of mobile microrobotic swarms is indispensable for their potential high-impact applications in targeted drug delivery, medical diagnostics, parallel micromanipulation, and environmental sensing and remediation. Lack of…
Mechanical waves that travel without inertia are often encountered in nature -- e.g. motion of plants -- yet such waves remain rare in synthetic materials. Here, we discover the emergence of slow kinks in overdamped metamaterials and we…
Dynamic quadrupedal locomotion over rough terrains reveals remarkable progress over the last few decades. Small-scale quadruped robots are adequately flexible and adaptable to traverse uneven terrains along sagittal direction, such as…
Microswimmers are sub-millimeter swimming microrobots that show potential as a platform for controllable locomotion in applications including targeted cargo delivery and minimally invasive surgery. To be viable for these target…
Design of robots at the small scale is a trial-and-error based process, which is costly and time-consuming. There are few dynamic simulation tools available to accurately predict the motion or performance of untethered microrobots as they…
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…
Soft actuators have shown great advantages in compliance and morphology matched for manipulation of delicate objects and inspection in a confined space. There is an unmet need for a soft actuator that can provide torsional motion to e.g.…
This paper presents the design, analysis, and performance evaluation of an omnidirectional transformable wheel-leg robot called OmniWheg. We design a novel mechanism consisting of a separable omni-wheel and 4-bar linkages, allowing the…
Structures and/or materials with engineered functionality, capable of achieving targeted mechanical responses reacting to changes in external excitation, have various potential engineering applications, e.g. aerospace, oceanographic…