Related papers: SurferBot: A wave-propelled aquatic vibrobot
All-around, real-time navigation and sensing across the water environments by miniature soft robotics are promising, for their merits of small size, high agility and good compliance to the unstructured surroundings. In this paper, we…
Faced with strong demand for robots working in underwater pipeline environments, a novel underwater multi-model locomotion robot is designed and studied in this research. By mimicking the earthworm's metameric body, the robot is segmented…
Traditional rigid underwater vehicles pose risks to delicate marine ecosystems due to high-speed propellers and rigid hulls. This paper presents BactoBot, a low-cost, soft underwater robot designed for safe and gentle marine exploration.…
We present and analyze a theoretical model for the dynamics and interactions of "capillary surfers," which are millimetric objects that self-propel while floating at the interface of a vibrating fluid bath. In our companion paper [1], we…
When a floating body is internally or externally vibrated, its self-generated wavefield can lead to steady propulsion along the interface. In this article, we review several related and recently discovered systems that leverage this…
DribbleBot (Dexterous Ball Manipulation with a Legged Robot) is a legged robotic system that can dribble a soccer ball under the same real-world conditions as humans (i.e., in-the-wild). We adopt the paradigm of training policies in…
Autonomous ocean-exploring vehicles have begun to take advantage of onboard sensor measurements of water properties such as salinity and temperature to locate oceanic features in real time. Such targeted sampling strategies enable more…
Fish have endured millions of years of evolution, and their distinct rigid-flexible body structures offer inspiration for overcoming challenges in underwater robotics, such as limited mobility, high energy consumption, and adaptability.…
Natural selection has tuned many flying and swimming animals across different species to share the same narrow design space for optimal high-efficient and energy-saving locomotion, e.g., their dimensionless Strouhal numbers St that relate…
Soft robotic manipulators are generally slow despite their great adaptability, resilience, and compliance. This limitation also extends to current soft robotic micromanipulators. Here, we introduce FilMBot, a 3-DOF film-based,…
The locomotion of flexible membrane-like organisms on top of curved surfaces appears in different contexts and scales. Still, such dynamics have not yet been quantitatively modeled and no realization of such motion in manmade systems has…
Micro-organisms propel themselves in viscous environments by the periodic, nonreciprocal beating of slender appendages known as flagella. Active materials have been widely exploited to mimic this form of locomotion. However, the realization…
In this paper we study the self-propulsion of a dumbbell micro-robot submerged in a viscous fluid. The micro-robot consists of two rigid spherical beads connected by a rod or a spring; the rod's/spring's length is changing periodically. The…
Flying robots, such as quadrotor drones, offer new possibilities for human-robot interaction but often pose safety risks due to fast-spinning propellers, rigid structures, and noise. In contrast, lighter-than-air flapping-wing robots,…
The one-to-one mapping of control inputs to actuator outputs results in elaborate routing architectures that limit how complex fluidic soft robot behaviours can currently become. Embodied intelligence can be used as a tool to counteract…
The backswimmer fly is an aquatic insect, capable of regulating its buoyancy underwater. Its abdomen is covered with hemoglobin cells, used to bind and release oxygen, reversibly. Upon entering water, the fly entraps an air bubble in a…
Underwater robotic manipulation faces significant challenges due to complex fluid dynamics and unstructured environments, causing most manipulation systems to rely heavily on human teleoperation. In this paper, we introduce AquaBot, a fully…
Autonomous robots can transform how we observe marine ecosystems, but close-range operation in reefs and other cluttered habitats remains difficult. Vehicles must maneuver safely near animals and fragile structures while coping with…
Objects moving in fluids experience patterns of stress on their surfaces determined by their motion and the geometry of nearby boundaries. Fish and underwater robots can use these patterns for navigation. This paper extends this…
A Cyber-physical underwater vehicle is equipped with bio-inspired flapping fins positioned on the sides of the vehicle's main body. The proposed control surfaces are inspired by fish pectoral fins, generating forces and moments that can…