Related papers: Soft Fluidic Closed-Loop Controller for Untethered…
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…
Robotic arms are essential to modern industries, however, their adaptability to unstructured environments remains limited. Soft robotic arms, particularly those actuated pneumatically, offer greater adaptability in unstructured environments…
Origami-inspired robots are of particular interest given their potential for rapid and accessible design and fabrication of elegant designs and complex functionalities through cutting and folding of flexible 2D sheets or even strings,…
Soft electrothermal actuators are of great interest in diverse application domains for their simplicity, compliance, and ease of control. However, the very nature of thermally induced mechanical actuation sets inherent operation…
Climbing soft robots are of tremendous interest in both science and engineering due to their potential applications in intelligent surveillance, inspection, maintenance, and detection under environments away from the ground. The challenge…
Robotic simulators provide cost-effective and risk-free virtual environments for studying robotic designs, control algorithms, and sensor integrations. They typically host extensive libraries of sensors and actuators that facilitate rapid…
This work provides a complete framework for the simulation, co-optimization, and sim-to-real transfer of the design and control of soft legged robots. The compliance of soft robots provides a form of "mechanical intelligence" -- the ability…
A pinned-free beam in axial fluid flow, subjected to feedback-based actuation at the pinned end, is investigated. The actuation may be a moment or a prescribed angle and it is proportional to the state (curvature, slope, or displacement) of…
Soft sensors are crucial in bridging autonomous systems' physical and digital realms, enhancing sensor fusion and perception. Instead of deploying soft sensors on the Cloud, this study shift towards employing on-device soft sensors,…
Soft robotic systems have gained widespread attention due to their inherent flexibility, adaptability, and safety, making them well-suited for varied applications. Among bioinspired designs, earthworm locomotion has been extensively studied…
Robots built from soft materials can alter their shape and size in a particular profile. This shape-changing ability could be extremely helpful for rescue robots and those operating in unknown terrains and environments. In changing shape,…
We propose a novel active-flow-control (AFC) strategy for bluff bodies to hide their hydrodynamic traces from predators. A group of windward-suction-leeward-blowing (WSLB) actuators are adopted to control the wake of a circular cylinder…
Relative motion between soft wet solids arises in a number of applications in natural and artificial settings, and invariably couples elastic deformation and fluid flow. We explore this in a minimal setting by considering a fluid-immersed…
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…
Soft robotics leverages deformable materials to develop robots capable of navigating unstructured and dynamic environments. Silicone Voxel-Based Soft Robots (Silibots) are a type of pneumatically actuated soft robots that rely on the…
Soft robotic instruments could navigate delicate, tortuous anatomy more safely than rigid tools, but clinical adoption is limited by insufficient tip functionalization and real-time feedback at the tissue interface. Few sensing and…
Soft robots offer a frontier in robotics with enormous potential for safe human-robot interaction and agility in uncertain environments. A stepping stone towards unlocking their potential is a control theory tailored to soft robotics,…
Underwater robots are widely deployed for ocean exploration and manipulation. Underactuated mechanisms are particularly advantageous in aquatic environments, as reducing actuator count lowers the risk of motor leakage while introducing…
Dynamic motions are a key feature of robotic arms, enabling them to perform tasks quickly and efficiently. Soft continuum manipulators do not currently consider dynamic parameters when operating in task space. This shortcoming makes…
Microfluidic devices manufactured from soft polymeric materials have emerged as a paradigm for cheap, disposable and easy-to-prototype fluidic platforms for integrating chemical and biological assays and analyses. The interplay between the…