Related papers: Ultra-fast, programmable, and electronics-free sof…
Autonomous grasping remains challenging as unlike humans, robots do not possess a sophisticated sensing nor delicate interaction capability with the real environment. Among other efforts that tried to close the gap between them,…
Robotic grasping under uncertainty remains a fundamental challenge due to its uncertain and contact-rich nature. Traditional rigid robotic hands, with limited degrees of freedom and compliance, rely on complex model-based and heavy feedback…
A shared grasp is a grasp formed by contacts between the manipulated object and both the robot hand and the environment. By trading off hand contacts for environmental contacts, a shared grasp requires fewer contacts with the hand, and…
Dynamic in-hand manipulation remains a challenging task for soft robotic systems that have demonstrated advantages in safe compliant interactions but struggle with high-speed dynamic tasks. In this work, we present SWIFT, a system for…
To design a general-purpose assembly robot system that can handle objects of various shapes, we propose a soft jig that fits to the shapes of assembly parts. The functionality of the soft jig is based on a jamming gripper developed in the…
Shape-morphing robots have shown benefits in industrial grasping. We propose form-flexible grippers for adaptive grasping. The design is based on the hybrid jamming and suction mechanism, which deforms to handle objects that vary…
This paper presents a novel simulation platform, ZeMa, designed for robotic manipulation tasks concerning soft objects. Such simulation ideally requires three properties: two-way soft-rigid coupling, intersection-free guarantees, and…
Manipulation in cluttered environments like homes requires stable grasps, precise placement and robustness against external contact. We present the Soft-Bubble gripper system with a highly compliant gripping surface and dense-geometry…
We describe a force-controlled robotic gripper with built-in tactile and 3D perception. We also describe a complete autonomous manipulation pipeline consisting of object detection, segmentation, point cloud processing, force-controlled…
Soft robots, inspired by elephant trunks or octopus arms, offer extraordinary flexibility to bend, twist, and elongate in ways that rigid robots cannot. However, their motion planning remains a challenge, especially in cluttered…
Soft grippers are gaining significant attention in the manipulation of elastic objects, where it is required to handle soft and unstructured objects which are vulnerable to deformations. A crucial problem is to estimate the physical…
Grasping objects with diverse mechanical properties, such as heavy, slippery, or fragile items, remains a significant challenge in robotics. Conventional rigid grippers typically rely on increasing the normal forces to secure an object,…
This paper presents the first steps toward a soft dolphin robot using a bio-inspired approach to mimic dolphin flexibility. The current dolphin robot uses a minimalist approach, with only two actuated cable-driven degrees of freedom…
This work details the design of a novel two finger robot gripper with multiple Gelsight based optical-tactile sensors covering the inner surface of the hand. The multiple Gelsight sensors can gather the surface topology of the object from…
Objective: In this work we address limitations in state-of-the-art ultrasound robots by designing and integrating a novel soft robotic system for ultrasound imaging. It employs the inherent qualities of soft fluidic actuators to establish…
Soft robots are notoriously hard to control. This is partly due to the scarcity of models able to capture their complex continuum mechanics, resulting in a lack of control methodologies that take full advantage of body compliance. Currently…
Soft robotic manipulators offer operational advantage due to their compliant and deformable structures. However, their inherently nonlinear dynamics presents substantial challenges. Traditional analytical methods often depend on simplifying…
Soft robots manufactured with flexible materials can be highly compliant and adaptive to their surroundings, which facilitates their application in areas such as dexterous manipulation and environmental exploration. This paper aims at…
Complex and even chaotic dynamics, though prevalent in many natural and engineered systems, has been largely avoided in the design of electromechanical systems due to concerns about wear and controlability. Here, we demonstrate that complex…
Electrically-driven soft robots based on piezoelectric actuators may enable compact form factors and maneuverability in complex environments. In most prior work, piezoelectric actuators are used to control a single degree of freedom. In…