Related papers: Fast Untethered Soft Robotic Crawler with Elastic …
Soft robots have the ability to adapt to their environment, which makes them suitable for use in disaster areas and agricultural fields, where their mobility is constrained by complex terrain. One of the main challenges in developing soft…
Deep reinforcement learning has emerged as a popular and powerful way to develop locomotion controllers for quadruped robots. Common approaches have largely focused on learning actions directly in joint space, or learning to modify and…
High absolute accuracy is an essential prerequisite for a humanoid robot to autonomously and robustly perform manipulation tasks while avoiding obstacles. We present for the first time a kinematic model for a humanoid upper body…
This paper evaluates the capabilities of a soft robotic pneumatic actuator derived from the terrain display haptic device, "The Smart Shoe." The bladder design of the Smart Shoe is upgraded to include a pressure supply and greater output…
We present controllers that enable mobile robots to persistently monitor or sweep a changing environment. The changing environment is modeled as a field which grows in locations that are not within range of a robot, and decreases in…
Snake robots are inspired by the ability of biological snakes to move over rock, grass, leaves, soil, up trees, along pavement and more. Their ability to move in multiple distinct environments is due to their legless locomotion strategy,…
This paper proposes a safety-critical locomotion control framework employed for legged robots exploring through infeasible path in obstacle-rich environments. Our research focus is on achieving safe and robust locomotion where robots…
The design of physical compliance -- its location, degree, and structure -- affects robot performance and robustness in contact-rich tasks. While compliance is often used in the robot's joints, flange, or end-effector, this paper proposes…
Animals can accomplish many incredible behavioral feats across a wide range of operational environments and scales that current robots struggle to match. One explanation for this performance gap is the extraordinary properties of the…
Soft robotics has the potential to revolutionize robotic locomotion, in particular, soft robotic swimmers offer a minimally invasive and adaptive solution to explore and preserve our oceans. Unfortunately, current soft robotic swimmers are…
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…
Macroscale robotic systems have demonstrated great capabilities of high speed, precise, and agile functions. However, the ability of soft robots to perform complex tasks, especially in centimeter and millimeter scale, remains limited due to…
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…
Continuum robots (CR) offer excellent dexterity and compliance in contrast to rigid-link robots, making them suitable for navigating through, and interacting with, confined environments. However, the study of path planning for CRs while…
This paper presents an aerially deployable crawler designed for adaptive locomotion and manipulation within tree canopies. The system combines compliant microspine-based tracks, a dual-track rotary gripper, and an elastic tail, enabling…
The motion control of wheeled mobile robots at high speeds under adverse ground conditions is a difficult task, since the robots' wheels may be subject to different kinds of slip. This work introduces an adaptive kinematic controller that…
Bio-inspired underwater vehicles could yield improved efficiency, maneuverability, and environmental compatibility over conventional propeller-driven underwater vehicles. However, to realize the swimming performance of biology, there is a…
Tip-growing eversion robots are renowned for their ability to access remote spaces through narrow passages. However, achieving reliable navigation remains a significant challenge. Existing solutions often rely on artificial muscles…
We present a new open-source torque-controlled legged robot system, with a low-cost and low-complexity actuator module at its core. It consists of a high-torque brushless DC motor and a low-gear-ratio transmission suitable for impedance and…
Snakes can traverse almost all types of environments by bending their elongate bodies in 3-D to interact with the terrain. Similarly, a snake robot is a promising platform to perform critical tasks in various environments. Understanding how…