Related papers: Active Vibration Fluidization for Granular Jamming…
Soft pneumatic actuators with integrated strain limiting layers have emerged as predominant components in the field of soft gripper technology for several decades. However, owing to their intrinsic strain-limiting layer design, these soft…
A robust grip is key to successful manipulation and joining of work pieces involved in any industrial assembly process. Stability of a grip depends on geometric and physical properties of the object as well as the gripper itself. Current…
Grip surfaces with tunable friction can actively modify contact conditions, enabling transitions between higher- and lower-friction states for grasp adjustment. Friction can be increased to grip securely and then decreased to gently release…
Grasping using an aerial robot can have many applications ranging from infrastructure inspection and maintenance to precise agriculture. However, aerial grasping is a challenging problem since the robot has to maintain an accurate position…
While the grasping capability of robotic grippers has shown significant development, the ability to manipulate objects within the hand is still limited. One explanation for this limitation is the lack of controlled contact variation between…
While compliant grippers have become increasingly commonplace in robot manipulation, finding the right stiffness and geometry for grasping the widest variety of objects remains a key challenge. Adjusting both stiffness and gripper geometry…
We investigate the dynamic evolution of jamming in granular media through fluctuations in the granular drag force. The successive collapse and formation of jammed states give a stick-slip nature to the fluctuations which is independent of…
Granular systems are not always homogeneous and can be composed of grains with very different mechanical properties. To improve our understanding of the behavior of real granular systems, in this experimental study, we compress 2D…
By means of tree-dimensional contact dynamics simulations, we analyze the vibrational dynamics of a confined granular layer in response to harmonic forcing. The sample is composed of polyedric grains with a shape derived from digitalized…
Properly handling delicate produce with robotic manipulators is a major part of the future role of automation in agricultural harvesting and processing. Grasping with the correct amount of force is crucial in not only ensuring proper grip…
Jamming is a fundamental transition that governs the mechanical behavior of particulate media, including sand, foam and dense suspensions but also biological tissues: Upon compression, particulate media can change from freely flowing to a…
Performing a grasp is a pivotal capability for a robotic gripper. We propose a new evaluation approach of grasping stability via constructing a model of grasping stiffness based on the theory of contact mechanics. First, the mathematical…
Pattern formation of a thin layer of vertically agitated wet granular matter is investigated experimentally. Due to the strong cohesion arising from the capillary bridges formed between adjacent particles, agitated wet granular matter…
Granular materials are of critical interest to many robotic tasks in planetary science, construction, and manufacturing. However, the dynamics of granular materials are complex and often computationally very expensive to simulate. We…
By means of two-dimensional contact dynamics simulations, we analyze the vibrational dynamics of a confined granular layer in response to harmonic forcing. We use irregular polygonal grains allowing for strong variability of solid fraction.…
We develop the concept of frequency dependent effective mass, M(omega), of jammed granular materials which occupy a rigid cavity to a filling fraction of 48%, the remaining volume being air of normal room condition or controlled humidity.…
Rapid and versatile object manipulation in air is an open challenge. An energy-efficient and adaptive soft gripper combined with an agile aerial vehicle could revolutionize aerial robotic manipulation in areas such as warehousing. This…
Observing and understanding the movement of an intruder through opaque dense suspensions such as quicksand remains a practical and conceptual challenge. Here we use an ultrasonic probe to investigate the dynamics of a steel ball sinking in…
Robot grasping is subject to an inherent tradeoff: Grippers with a large span typically take a longer time to close, and fast grippers usually cover a small span. However, many practical applications of soft grippers require the ability to…
A granular gripper is a device used to hold objects by taking advantage of the phenomenon of Reynold's dilatancy. A membrane containing a granular sample is allowed to deform around the object to be held and then vacuum is used to jam the…