Related papers: Pleobot: a modular robotic solution for metachrona…
We design and test an octopus-inspired flexible hull robot that demonstrates outstanding fast-starting performance. The robot is hyper-inflated with water, and then rapidly deflates to expel the fluid so as to power the escape maneuver.…
Undulatory locomotion, a gait in which thrust is produced in the opposite direction of a traveling wave of body bending, is a common mode of propulsion used by animals in fluids, on land, and even within sand. As such it has been an…
Motile microorganisms develop effective swimming gaits to adapt to complex biological environments. Translating this adaptability to smart microrobots presents significant challenges in motion planning and stroke design. In this work, we…
Soft robotics is advancing the use of flexible materials for adaptable robotic systems. Membrane-actuated soft robots address the limitations of traditional soft robots by using pressurized, extensible membranes to achieve stable, large…
We review recent work on active colloids or swimmers, such as self-propelled microorganisms, phoretic colloidal particles, and artificial micro-robotic systems, moving in fluid-like environments. These environments can be water-like and…
The development of multifunctional and biocompatible microrobots for biomedical applications relies on achieving locomotion through viscous fluids. Here, we describe a framework for swimming in homogeneous magnetoelastic membranes composed…
Limbless locomotors, from microscopic worms to macroscopic snakes, traverse complex, heterogeneous natural environments typically using undulatory body wave propagation. Theoretical and robophysical models typically emphasize body…
The ocean vast unexplored regions and diverse soft-bodied marine organisms have spurred interest in bio-inspired underwater soft robotics. Recent advances have enabled new capabilities in underwater movement, sensing, and interaction.…
Over the past few decades, biomimetic robotic experiments have significantly advanced our understanding of undulatory swimming. Compared to animal experiments, robotic experiments offer repeatability and controlled parameter variations, but…
Fluid prediction is a long-standing challenge due to the intrinsic high-dimensional non-linear dynamics. Previous methods usually utilize the non-linear modeling capability of deep models to directly estimate velocity fields for future…
The Modboat is an autonomous surface robot that turns the oscillation of a single motor into a controlled paddling motion through passive flippers. Inertial control methods developed in prior work can successfully drive the Modboat along…
Any phenomenon in nature is potential to be an inspiration for us to propose new ideas. Lateral line is a typical example which has attracted more interest in recent years. With the aid of lateral line, fish is capable of acquiring fluid…
Despite recent advances in artificial cilia technologies, the application of metachrony, which is the collective wavelike motion by cilia moving out-of-phase, has been severely hampered by difficulties in controlling densely packed…
Bipedal humanoid robots must precisely coordinate balance, timing, and contact decisions when locomoting on constrained footholds such as stepping stones, beams, and planks -- even minor errors can lead to catastrophic failure. Classical…
The backswimmer fly is an aquatic insect, capable of regulating its buoyancy underwater. Its abdomen is covered with hemoglobin cells, used to bind and release oxygen, reversibly. Upon entering water, the fly entraps an air bubble in a…
Microorganisms are rarely found in Nature swimming freely in an unbounded fluid. Instead, they typically encounter other organisms, hard walls, or deformable boundaries such as free interfaces or membranes. Hydrodynamic interactions between…
In this paper, we present an approach to study the behavior of compliant plates in granular media and optimize the performance of a robot that utilizes this technique for mobility. From previous work and fundamental tests on thin plate…
Active diffusiophoresis - swimming through interaction with a self-generated, neutral, solute gradient - is a paradigm for autonomous motion at the micrometer scale. We study this propulsion mechanism within a linear response theory.…
Motility is a basic feature of living microorganisms, and how it works is often determined by environmental cues. Recent efforts have focused on develop- ing artificial systems that can mimic microorganisms, and in particular their…
Swimming and pumping at low Reynolds numbers are subject to the "Scallop theorem", which states that there will be no net fluid flow for time reversible motions. Living organisms such as bacteria and cells are subject to this constraint,…