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Soft robotics is an attractive and rapidly emerging field, in which actuation is coupled with the elastic response of the robot's structure to achieve complex deformation patterns. A crucial challenge is the need for multiple control…
Soft, tip-extending "vine" robots offer a unique mode of inspection and manipulation in highly constrained environments. For practicality, it is desirable that the distal end of the robot can be manipulated freely, while the body remains…
With the increasing integration of robots into human life, their role in architectural spaces where people spend most of their time has become more prominent. While motion capabilities and accurate localization for automated robots have…
Growth-elasticity is a powerful model framework for understanding complex shape development in soft biological tissues. At each instant, by mapping how continuum building blocks have grown geometrically and how they respond elastically to…
The origin of rigidity in disordered materials is an outstanding open problem in statistical physics. Previously, a class of 2D cellular models has been shown to undergo a rigidity transition controlled by a mechanical parameter that…
The simulation of growth processes within soft biological tissues is of utmost importance for many applications in the medical sector. Within this contribution we propose a new macroscopic approach fro modelling stress-driven volumetric…
3D bicontinuous two-phase materials are increasingly gaining interest because of their unique multifunctional characteristics and advancements in techniques to fabricate them. Due to their complex topological and structural properties, it…
Kinetically constrained spin models are known to exhibit dynamical behavior mimicking that of glass forming systems. They are often understood as coarse-grained models of glass formers, in terms of some "mobility" field. The identity of…
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…
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…
We consider the problem of reorienting a rigid object with arbitrary known shape on a table using a two-finger pinch gripper. Reorienting problem is challenging because of its non-smoothness and high dimensionality. In this work, we focus…
Flexible object manipulation of paper and cloth is a major research challenge in robot manipulation. Although there have been efforts to develop hardware that enables specific actions and to realize a single action of paper folding using…
Soft robots have drawn significant attention recently for their ability to achieve rich shapes when interacting with complex environments. However, their elasticity and flexibility compared to rigid robots also pose significant challenges…
Multi-step pathways, constituted of a sequence of reconfigurations, are central to a wide variety of natural and man-made systems. Such pathways autonomously execute in self-guided processes such as protein folding and self-assembly, but…
Using linearized elasticity as a convenient mechanical framework, we show that volumetric growth can be formulated as an optimization-driven process in which the growth tensor is determined implicitly by constrained optimization rather than…
We analyze the performance of a reduced-order simulation of geometric meta-materials based on zigzag patterns using a simplified representation. As geometric meta-materials we denote planar cellular structures which can be fabricated in 2d…
Today the study of two-dimensional (2D) materials has become one of the key objectives of materials science. Unlike their three-dimensional counterparts, 2D materials can simultaneously demonstrate unique transport and mechanical properties…
Continuum robots, characterized by their high flexibility and infinite degrees of freedom (DoFs), have gained prominence in applications such as minimally invasive surgery and hazardous environment exploration. However, the intrinsic…
Topology optimization is a powerful tool utilized in various fields for structural design. However, its application has primarily been restricted to static or passively moving objects, mainly focusing on hard materials with limited…
There are many spaces inaccessible to humans where robots could help deliver sensors and equipment. Many of these spaces contain three-dimensional passageways and uneven terrain that pose challenges for robot design and control. Everting…