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Designing soft robots poses considerable challenges: automated design approaches may be particularly appealing in this field, as they promise to optimize complex multi-material machines with very little or no human intervention.…
Flapping animal flight is often modeled as a combined pitching and heaving motion in order to investigate the unsteady flow structures and resulting forces that could augment the animal's lift and propulsive capabilities. This work isolates…
Snakes can move through almost any terrain. Although their locomotion on flat surfaces using planar gaits is inherently stable, when snakes deform their body out of plane to traverse complex terrain, maintaining stability becomes a…
Inspired by the octopus and other animals living in water, soft robots should naturally lend themselves to underwater operations, as supported by encouraging validations in deep water scenarios. This work deals with equipping soft arms with…
Marine exploration is essential to understanding ocean processes and organisms. While the use of current unmanned underwater vehicles has enabled many discoveries, there are still plenty of limitations toward exploring complex environments.…
Miniaturizing legged robot platforms is challenging due to hardware limitations that constrain the number, power density, and precision of actuators at that size. By leveraging design principles of quasi-passive walking robots at any scale,…
A wide range of microorganisms, e.g. bacteria, propel themselves by rotation of soft helical tails, also known as flagella. Due to the small size of these organisms, viscous forces overwhelm inertial effects and the flow is at low Reynolds…
Traditional locomotion strategies become ineffective at low Reynolds numbers, where viscous forces predominate over inertial forces. To adapt, microorganisms have evolved specialized structures like cilia and flagella for efficient…
The design of localization systems for small-scale flapping-wing aerial robots faces relevant challenges caused by the limited payload and onboard computational resources. This paper presents an ultra-wideband localization system…
The extraordinary aerial agility of hummingbirds and insects continues to inspire the design of flapping-wing drones. To replicate and analyze such flight, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations that couple flow solvers with rigid…
Inchworm crawling allows for both quasistatic and dynamic gaits at a wide range of actuation frequencies. This locomotion mechanism is common in nonskeletal animals and exploited extensively in the bio-inspired field of soft robotics. In…
Flapping wings are a bio-inspired method to produce lift and thrust in aerial robots, leading to quiet and efficient motion. The advantages of this technology are safety and maneuverability, and physical interaction with the environment,…
This paper presents a 3-DOF hopping robot with a human-like lower-limb joint configuration and a flat foot, capable of performing dynamic and repetitive jumping motions. To achieve both high torque output and a large hollow shaft diameter…
Over the past few decades, biomimetic robotic experiments have significantly advanced our understanding of undulatory swimming. Compared to animal experiments, robotic experiments offer repeatability and controlled parameter variations, but…
Microscopic robots could perform tasks with high spatial precision, such as acting on precisely-targeted cells in biological tissues. Some tasks may benefit from robots that change shape, such as elongating to improve chemical gradient…
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…
Bio-inspired soft robots have already shown the ability to handle uncertainty and adapt to unstructured environments. However, their availability is partially restricted by time-consuming, costly and highly supervised design-fabrication…
The ocean vast unexplored regions and diverse soft-bodied marine organisms have spurred interest in bio-inspired underwater soft robotics. Recent advances have enabled new capabilities in underwater movement, sensing, and interaction.…
Soft robots are inherently compliant and have a strong potential to realize human-friendly and safe robots. Despite continued research highlighting the potential of soft robots, they remain largely confined to laboratory settings. In this…
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:…