Related papers: Direct 3D Printing of Soft Fluidic Actuators with …
Conventional soft pneumatic actuators, typically based on hollow elastomeric chambers, often suffer from small structural support and require costly geometry-specific redesigns for multimodal functionality. Porous materials such as foam,…
Integration of both actuation and proprioception into the robot body would provide actuation and sensing in a single integrated system. Within this work, a manufacturing approach for such actuators is investigated that relies on 3D printing…
Soft robotics is advancing the use of flexible materials for adaptable robotic systems. Membrane-actuated soft robots address the limitations of traditional soft robots by using pressurized, extensible membranes to achieve stable, large…
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…
Foams are versatile by nature and ubiquitous in a wide range of applications, including padding, insulation, and acoustic dampening. Previous work established that foams 3D printed via Viscous Thread Printing (VTP) can in principle combine…
Artificial muscles embody human aspirations for engineering lifelike robotic movements. This paper introduces an architecture for Inflatable Fluid-Driven Origami-Inspired Artificial Muscles (IN-FOAMs). A typical IN-FOAM consists of an…
We present a 3D food printing (3DFP) method to create coiled structures, harnessing the liquid rope coiling effect as a rapid method of food printing with tunable fractural properties. By studying the printability and coil-forming ability…
This work introduces a novel technique for fabricating functional robots using 3D printers. Simultaneously depositing photopolymers and a non-curing liquid allows complex, pre-filled fluidic channels to be fabricated. This new printing…
Pneumatic soft robots are typically fabricated by molding, a manual fabrication process that requires skilled labor. Additive manufacturing has the potential to break this limitation and speed up the fabrication process but struggles with…
The system design and algorithm development of mobile 3D printing robots need a realistic simulation. They require a mobile robot simulation platform to interoperate with a physics-based material simulation for handling interactions between…
Ionic polymer actuators, in essence, consist of ion exchange polymers sandwiched between layers of electrodes. They have recently gained recognition as promising candidates for soft actuators due to their lightweight nature, noise-free…
The rapid design and fabrication of soft robotic matter is of growing interest for shape morphing, actuation, and wearable devices. Here, we report a facile fabrication method for creating soft robotic materials with embedded pneumatics…
The fabrication flexibility of 3D printing has sparked a lot of interest in designing structures with spatially graded material properties. In this paper, we propose a new type of density graded structure that is particularly designed for…
Compressing a porous, fluid-filled material will drive the interstitial fluid out of the pore space, as when squeezing water out of a kitchen sponge. Inversely, injecting fluid into a porous material can deform the solid structure, as when…
Soft robots are known for their ability to perform tasks with great adaptability, enabled by their distributed, non-uniform stiffness and actuation. Bending is the most fundamental motion for soft robot design, but creating robust, and…
Inorganic/inorganic composites are found in multiple applications crucial for the energy transition, from nuclear reactor to energy storage devices. Their microstructures dictate a number of properties, such as mass transport or fracture…
Acquiring a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between foam friction and surface roughness is essential for achieving precise control over their flow dynamics. In particular, a major challenge is to reduce friction, which can be…
Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a promising solution for handling the complexity of fabricating soft robots. However, the AM of hyperelastic materials is still challenging with a limited material range. Within this work, pellet-based 3D…
Vertebrate animals benefit from a combination of rigidity for structural support and softness for adaptation. Similarly, integrating rigidity and softness can enhance the versatility of soft robotics. However, the challenges associated with…
Soft robots enable safe, adaptive interaction with complex environments but remain difficult to sense and control due to their highly deformable structures. Architected soft materials such as helicoid lattices offer tunable stiffness and…