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For robot arms to perform everyday tasks in unstructured environments, these robots must be able to manipulate a diverse range of objects. Today's robots often grasp objects with either soft grippers or rigid end-effectors. However, purely…
Grasping mechanisms must both create and subsequently hold grasps that permit safe and effective object manipulation. Existing mechanisms address the different functional requirements of grasp creation and grasp holding using a single…
Tool-based scooping is vital in robot-assisted tasks, enabling interaction with objects of varying sizes, shapes, and material states. Recent studies have shown that flexible, reconfigurable soft robotic end-effectors can adapt their shape…
Endowing robots with tactile capabilities opens up new possibilities for their interaction with the environment, including the ability to handle fragile and/or soft objects. In this work, we equip the robot gripper with low-cost…
Soft robotic grippers are essential for grasping delicate, geometrically complex objects in manufacturing, healthcare and agriculture. However, existing grippers struggle to grasp feature-rich objects with high topological variability,…
Soft robotic grippers gently and safely manipulate delicate objects due to their inherent adaptability and softness. Limited by insufficient stiffness and imprecise force control, conventional soft grippers are not suitable for applications…
Grasping is an essential capability for most robots in practical applications. Soft robotic grippers are considered as a critical part of robotic grasping and have attracted considerable attention in terms of the advantages of the high…
Grasping has long been considered an important and practical task in robotic manipulation. Yet achieving robust and efficient grasps of diverse objects is challenging, since it involves gripper design, perception, control and learning, etc.…
Many organisms, including various species of spiders and caterpillars, change their shape to switch gaits and adapt to different environments. Recent technological advances, ranging from stretchable circuits to highly deformable soft…
The impressive capabilities of humans to robustly perform manipulation relies on compliant interactions, enabled through the structure and materials spatially distributed in our hands. We propose by mimicking this distributed compliance in…
Soft robotics focuses on designing robots with highly deformable materials, allowing them to adapt and operate safely and reliably in unstructured and variable environments. While soft robots offer increased compliance over rigid body…
Imagine a swarm of terrestrial robots that can explore an environment, and, upon completion of this task, reconfigure into a spherical ball and roll out. This dimensional change alters the dynamics of locomotion and can assist them to…
Living systems can use a single periphery to perform a variety of tasks and adapt to a dynamic environment. This multifunctionality is achieved through the use of neural circuitry that adaptively controls the reconfigurable musculature.…
Soft robots are intrinsically capable of adapting to different environments by changing their shape in response to interaction forces with the environment. However, sensing and feedback are still required for higher level decisions and…
This paper introduces RoTipBot, a novel robotic system for handling thin, flexible objects. Different from previous works that are limited to singulating them using suction cups or soft grippers, RoTipBot can count multiple layers and then…
Humans grasp unfamiliar objects by combining an initial visual estimate with tactile and proprioceptive feedback during interaction. We present ShapeGrasp, a robotic implementation of this approach. The proposed method is an iterative…
Grasping a variety of objects remains a key challenge in the development of versatile robotic systems. The human hand is remarkably dexterous, capable of grasping and manipulating objects with diverse shapes, mechanical properties, and…
Underwater vehicles have seen significant development over the past seventy years. However, bio-inspired propulsion robots are still in their early stages and require greater interdisciplinary collaboration between biologists and…
Over the past few decades, efforts have been made towards robust robotic grasping, and therefore dexterous manipulation. The soft gripper has shown their potential in robust grasping due to their inherent properties-low, control complexity,…
This paper tackles the task of singulating and grasping paper-like deformable objects. We refer to such tasks as paper-flipping. In contrast to manipulating deformable objects that lack compression strength (such as shirts and ropes), minor…