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Micromobility vehicles, such as e-scooters, are increasingly popular in urban communities but present significant challenges in terms of road safety, user privacy, infrastructure planning, and civil engineering. Addressing these critical…
Soft robots can exhibit diverse behaviors with simple types of actuation by partially outsourcing control to the morphological and material properties of their soft bodies, which is made possible by the tight coupling between control, body,…
Force and proximity sensors are key in robotics, especially when applied in collaborative robots that interact physically or cognitively with humans in real unstructured environments. However, most existing sensors for use in robotics are…
This study describes the development and validation of a novel microgravity experimental platform that is mainly applied to small robots such as modular self-reconfigurable robots. This platform mainly consists of an air supply system, a…
We present the modeling, design, fabrication and feedback control of an earthworm-inspired soft robot capable of crawling on surfaces by actively manipulating the frictional force between its body and the surface. Earthworms are segmented…
True microrobots, in contrast with externally controlled microparticles, must harvest or carry their own source of energy, as well as their own (preferably programmable) microcontroller of actuators for locomotion, using information…
Tensegrity structures are lightweight, can undergo large deformations, and have outstanding robustness capabilities. These unique properties inspired roboticists to investigate their use. However, the morphological design, control,…
In this work, we aim to teach robots to manipulate various thin-shell materials. Prior works studying thin-shell object manipulation mostly rely on heuristic policies or learn policies from real-world video demonstrations, and only focus on…
If human experience is any guide, operating effectively in unstructured environments -- like homes and offices -- requires robots to sense the forces during physical interaction. Yet, the lack of a versatile, accessible, and easily…
This paper presents a novel type of mobile rolling robot designed as a modular platform for non-prehensile manipulation, highlighting the associated control challenges in achieving balancing control of the robotic system. The developed…
Task-driven design of soft robots requires models that are physically accurate and computationally efficient, while remaining transferable across actuator designs and task scenarios. However, existing modeling approaches typically face a…
Both the design and control of a robot play equally important roles in its task performance. However, while optimal control is well studied in the machine learning and robotics community, less attention is placed on finding the optimal…
High-performance closed-loop control of truly soft continuum manipulators has remained elusive. Experimental demonstrations have largely relied on sufficiently stiff, piecewise architectures in which each actuated segment behaves as a…
Back injuries are the most prevalent work-related musculoskeletal disorders and represent a major cause of disability. Although innovations in wearable robots aim to alleviate this hazard, the majority of existing exoskeletons are obtrusive…
In this article, a floating robotic emulation platform for a virtual demonstration of satellite motion in space is presented. The robotic platform design is characterized by its friction-less, levitating, yet planar motion over a…
Soft robots could bring robotic systems to new horizons, by enabling safe human-machine interaction. For precise control, these soft structures require high level position feedback that is not easily achieved through conventional…
In real-world field operations, aerial grasping systems face significant challenges in dynamic environments due to strong winds, shifting surfaces, and the need to handle heavy loads. Particularly when dealing with heavy objects, the…
Successful soft robot modeling approaches appearing in recent literature have been based on a variety of distinct theories, including traditional robotic theory, continuum mechanics, and machine learning. Though specific modeling techniques…
Mobile soft robots offer compelling applications in fields ranging from urban search and rescue to planetary exploration. A critical challenge of soft robotic control is that the nonlinear dynamics imposed by soft materials often result in…
Dynamic control of a soft-body robot to deliver complex behaviors with low-dimensional actuation inputs is challenging. In this paper, we present a computational approach to automatically generate versatile, underactuated control policies…