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Shape-programmable soft materials that exhibit integrated multifunctional shape manipulations, including reprogrammable, untethered, fast, and reversible shape transformation and locking, are highly desirable for a plethora of applications,…
Soft robotic systems offer benefits over traditional rigid systems through reduced contact trauma with soft tissues and by enabling access through tortuous paths in minimally invasive surgery. However, the inherent deformability of soft…
Air-dispersed sensor networks deployed from aerial robotic systems (e.g., UAVs) provide a low-cost approach to wide-area environmental monitoring. However, existing methods often rely on active actuators for mid-air shape or trajectory…
In this paper, we introduce the concept of using passive arm structures with intrinsic impedance for robot-robot and human-robot collaborative carrying with quadruped robots. The concept is meant for a leader-follower task and takes a…
The fields of soft and bio-inspired robotics promise to imbue synthetic systems with capabilities found in the natural world. However, many of these biological capabilities are yet to be realized. For example, vines in nature direct growth…
Shape sensing of medical continuum robots is important both for closed-loop control as well as for enabling the clinician to visualize the robot inside the body. There is a need for inexpensive, but accurate shape sensing technologies. This…
In this paper, we present an impedance control design for multi-variable linear and nonlinear robotic systems. The control design considers force and state feedback to improve the performance of the closed loop. Simultaneous feedback of…
Despite a significant proportion of the Earth being covered in water, exploration of what lies below has been limited due to the challenges and difficulties inherent in the process. Current state of the art robots such as Remotely Operated…
Due to their ability to move without sliding relative to their environment, soft growing robots are attractive for deploying distributed sensor networks in confined spaces. Sensing of the state of such robots would also add to their…
The deformable and continuum nature of soft robots promises versatility and adaptability. However, control of modular, multi-limbed soft robots for terrestrial locomotion is challenging due to the complex robot structure, actuator mechanics…
While the animals' Fin-to-Limb evolution has been well-researched in biology, such morphological transformation remains under-adopted in the modern design of advanced robotic limbs. This paper investigates a novel class of overconstrained…
We introduce and analyze a model for self-reconfigurable robots made up of unit-cube modules. Compared to past models, our model aims to newly capture two important practical aspects of real-world robots. First, modules often do not occupy…
Climbing robots face significant challenges when navigating unstructured environments, where reliable attachment to irregular surfaces is critical. We present a novel mobile climbing robot equipped with compliant pin-array structured…
Structural instability is a hazard that leads to catastrophic failure and is generally avoided through special designs. A trend, however, has emerged over the past decades pointing to the harnessing of mechanisms with instability. Inspired…
Shape-morphing devices, a crucial branch in soft robotics, hold significant application value in areas like human-machine interfaces, biomimetic robotics, and tools for interacting with biological systems. To achieve three-dimensional (3D)…
Robots are increasingly being deployed in agriculture to support sustainable practices and improve productivity. They offer strong potential to enable precise, efficient, and environmentally friendly operations. However, most existing…
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,…
Payload swing during rapid slewing of mobile cranes poses a safety risk, as it generates overturning moments that can lead to tip-over accidents of mobile cranes. Currently, to limit the risk of tip-over, mobile crane operators are forced…
Highly constrained manipulation tasks continue to be challenging for autonomous robots as they require high levels of precision, typically less than 1mm, which is often incompatible with what can be achieved by traditional perception…
This paper addresses the challenge of industrial bin picking using entangled wire harnesses. Wire harnesses are essential in manufacturing but poses challenges in automation due to their complex geometries and propensity for entanglement.…