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Humans possess a remarkable ability to react to unpredictable perturbations through immediate mechanical responses, which harness the visco-elastic properties of muscles to maintain balance. Inspired by this behaviour, we propose a novel…
Soft machines typically exhibit slow locomotion speed and low manipulation strength because of intrinsic limitations of soft materials. Here, we present a generic design principle that harnesses mechanical instability for a variety of…
The nonlinear mechanics of a flexible elastic rod constrained at its edges by a pair of sliding sleeves is analyzed. The planar equilibrium configurations of this variable-length elastica are found to have shape defined only by the…
In this paper, we study integrated estimation and control of soft robots. A significant challenge in deploying closed loop controllers is reliable proprioception via integrated sensing in soft robots. Despite the considerable advances…
Soft robotics have gained increased attention from the robotic community due to their unique features such as compliance and human safety. Impressive amount of soft robotic prototypes have shown their superior performance over their rigid…
Variable stiffness actuators undergo lower peak force in contacts compared to their rigid counterparts, and are thus safer for human-robot interaction. Furthermore, they can store energy in their elastic element and can release it later to…
Active systems of self-propelled agents, e.g., birds, fish, and bacteria, can organize their collective motion into myriad autonomous behaviors. Ubiquitous in nature and across length scales, such phenomena are also amenable to artificial…
It is shown that a compound elastic structure, which displays a dynamic instability, may be designed as the union (or 'fusion') of two structures which are stable when separately analyzed. The compound elastic structure has two degrees of…
Due to the highly variable execution context in which edge services run, adapting their behavior to the execution context is crucial to comply with their requirements. However, adapting service behavior is a challenging task because it is…
Tactile sensing plays an important role in robotic perception and manipulation. To overcome the real-world limitations of data collection, simulating tactile response in virtual environment comes as a desire direction of robotic research.…
Conformable robotic systems are attractive for applications in which they can be used to actuate structures with large surface areas, to provide forces through wearable garments, or to realize autonomous robotic systems. We present a new…
Mechanical interactions between rigid rings and flexible cables find broad application in both daily life (hanging clothes) and engineering systems (closing a tether-net). A reduced-order method for the dynamic analysis of sliding rings on…
Soft robots are made of compliant materials and perform tasks that are challenging for rigid robots. However, their continuum nature makes it difficult to develop model-based control strategies. This work presents a robust model-based…
Wave motion in a continuous elastic rod with a periodically attached inertial-amplification mechanism is investigated. The mechanism has properties similar to an "inerter" typically used in vehicle suspensions, however here it is…
We present a modified nudged elastic band routine that can reduce the number of force calls by more than 50% for bands with non-uniform convergence. The method, which we call "dyNEB", dynamically and selectively optimizes states based on…
The development of wearable sensing systems for sports performance tracking, rehabilitation, and injury prevention has driven growing demand for smart garments that combine comfort, durability, and accurate motion detection. This paper…
Flexible robots have advantages over rigid robots in their ability to conform physically to their environment and to form a wide variety of shapes. Sensing the force applied by or to flexible robots is useful for both navigation and…
Deformable solid objects such as clay or dough are prevalent in industrial and home environments. However, robotic manipulation of such objects has largely remained unexplored in literature due to the high complexity involved in…
Robots and intelligent systems that sense or interact with the world are increasingly being used to automate a wide array of tasks. The ability of these systems to complete these tasks depends on a large range of technologies such as the…
Physical interaction with textiles, such as assistive dressing, relies on advanced dextreous capabilities. The underlying complexity in textile behavior when being pulled and stretched, is due to both the yarn material properties and the…