Related papers: Fast Untethered Soft Robotic Crawler with Elastic …
The automatic design of embodied agents (e.g. robots) has existed for 31 years and is experiencing a renaissance of interest in the literature. To date however, the field has remained narrowly focused on two kinds of anatomically simple…
In this paper, a reinforced soft robot prototype with a custom-designed actuator-space string encoder are created to investigate dynamic soft robotic trajectory tracking. The soft robot prototype embedded with the proposed adaptive…
The heavy-load legged robot has strong load carrying capacity and can adapt to various unstructured terrains. But the large weight results in higher requirements for motion stability and environmental perception ability. In order to utilize…
Electroadhesion (EA) provides electrically switchable adhesion and is a promising mechanism for perching micro aerial robots on smooth surfaces. However, practical implementations of soft and stretchable EA pads for aerial perching remain…
Soft robots are compliant but often cannot support loads or hold their shape, while rigid robots provide structural strength but are less adaptable. Existing variable-stiffness systems usually operate at the scale of whole segments or…
Microscopic robots could perform tasks with high spatial precision, such as acting in biological tissues on the scale of individual cells, provided they can reach precise locations. This paper evaluates the feasibility of in vivo locomotion…
This paper introduces SCALER, a quadrupedal robot that demonstrates climbing on bouldering walls, overhangs, ceilings and trotting on the ground. SCALER is one of the first high-degrees of freedom four-limbed robots that can free-climb…
Soft robots have been leveraged in considerable areas like surgery, rehabilitation, and bionics due to their softness, flexibility, and safety. However, it is challenging to produce two same soft robots even with the same mold and…
Contrary to the stunning feats observed in birds of prey, aerial manipulation and grasping with flying robots still lack versatility and agility. Conventional approaches using rigid manipulators require precise positioning and are subject…
Soft robots, while highly adaptable to diverse environments through various actuation methods, still face significant performance boundary due to the inherent properties of materials. These limitations manifest in the challenge of…
Soft modular robots enable more flexibility and safer interaction with the changing environment than traditional robots. However, it has remained challenging to create deformable connectors that can be integrated into soft machines. In this…
In lunar and planetary exploration, legged robots have attracted significant attention as an alternative to conventional wheeled robots, which struggle to traverse rough and uneven terrain. To enable locomotion over highly irregular and…
Many soft robots struggle to produce dynamic motions with fast, large displacements. We develop a parallel 6 degree-of-freedom (DoF) Stewart-Gough mechanism using Handed Shearing Auxetic (HSA) actuators. By using soft actuators, we are able…
The Piecewise Constant Curvature (PCC) model is the most widely used soft robotic modeling and control. However, the PCC fails to accurately describe the deformation of the soft robots when executing dynamic tasks or interacting with the…
Here we present HAMR-Jr, a \SI{22.5}{\milli\meter}, \SI{320}{\milli\gram} quadrupedal microrobot. With eight independently actuated degrees of freedom, HAMR-Jr is, to our knowledge, the most mechanically dexterous legged robot at its scale…
Agile-legged robots have proven to be highly effective in navigating and performing tasks in complex and challenging environments, including disaster zones and industrial settings. However, these applications normally require the capability…
Under-actuated compliant robotic systems offer a promising approach to mitigating actuation and control challenges by harnessing pre-designed, embodied dynamic behaviors. This paper presents Flix-Walker, a novel, untethered,…
This paper presents a soft-robotic platform for exploring the ecological relevance of non-locomotory movements via animal-robot interactions. Coral snakes (genus Micrurus) and their mimics use vigorous, non-locomotory, and arrhythmic…
Quadrupedal animals can perform agile and playful tasks while interacting with real-world objects. For instance, a trained dog can track and catch a flying frisbee before it touches the ground, while a cat left alone at home may leap to…
Agile and adaptive maneuvers such as fall recovery, high-speed turning, and sprinting in the wild are challenging for legged systems. We propose a Curricular Hindsight Reinforcement Learning (CHRL) that learns an end-to-end tracking…