Related papers: Cosserat-Rod Based Dynamic Modeling of Soft Slende…
Soft robots are challenging to model and control as inherent non-linearities (e.g., elasticity and deformation), often requires complex explicit physics-based analytical modeling (e.g., a priori geometric definitions). While machine…
Navigation and motion control of a robot to a destination are tasks that have historically been performed with the assumption that contact with the environment is harmful. This makes sense for rigid-bodied robots where obstacle collisions…
This paper presents a study on the backstepping control of tendon-driven continuum robots for large deflections using the Cosserat rod model. Continuum robots are known for their flexibility and adaptability, making them suitable for…
Obtaining dynamic models of continuum soft robots is central to the analysis and control of soft robots, and researchers have devoted much attention to the challenge of proposing both data-driven and first-principle solutions. Both avenues…
State estimation of robotic systems is essential to implementing feedback controllers, which usually provide better robustness to modeling uncertainties than open-loop controllers. However, state estimation of soft robots is very…
Generating intelligent robot behavior in contact-rich settings is a research problem where zeroth-order methods currently prevail. A major contributor to the success of such methods is their robustness in the face of non-smooth and…
Precise kinematic modeling is critical in calibration and controller design for soft robots, yet remains a challenging issue due to their highly nonlinear and complex behaviors. To tackle the issue, numerous data-driven machine learning…
Continuum soft robots are mechanical systems entirely made of continuously deformable elements. This design solution aims to bring robots closer to invertebrate animals and soft appendices of vertebrate animals (e.g., an elephant's trunk, a…
Dexterous manipulation requires careful reasoning over extrinsic contacts. The prevalence of deforming tools in human environments, the use of deformable sensors, and the increasing number of soft robots yields a need for approaches that…
Compression of soft bodies is central to biology, materials science, and robotics, yet existing contact theories break down at large deformations. Here, we develop a general framework for soft-body compression by extending the method of…
Soft robots show compliance and have infinite degrees of freedom. Thanks to these properties, such robots can be leveraged for surgery, rehabilitation, biomimetics, unstructured environment exploring, and industrial grippers. In this case,…
Continuum soft robots are nonlinear mechanical systems with theoretically infinite degrees of freedom (DoFs) that exhibit complex behaviors. Achieving motor intelligence under dynamic conditions necessitates the development of…
Controlling robots that dynamically engage in contact with their environment is a pressing challenge. Whether a legged robot making-and-breaking contact with a floor, or a manipulator grasping objects, contact is everywhere. Unfortunately,…
This technical report provides an in-depth evaluation of both established and state-of-the-art methods for simulating constrained rigid multi-body systems with hard-contact dynamics, using formulations of Nonlinear Complementarity Problems…
The Piecewise Constant Curvature (PCC) model is the most widely used soft robotic modeling and control. However, the PCC fails to accurately describe the deformation of the soft robots when executing dynamic tasks or interacting with the…
Soft robots offer an alternative approach to manipulate inside the constrained space while maintaining the safe interaction with the external environment. Due to its adaptable compliance characteristic, external contact force can easily…
Traditional robots have rigid links and structures that limit their ability to interact with the dynamics of their immediate environment. For example, conventional robot manipulators with rigid links can only manipulate objects using…
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…
Endowing continuum robots with compliance while it is interacting with the internal environment of the human body is essential to prevent damage to the robot and the surrounding tissues. Compared with passive compliance, active compliance…
Soft robot are celebrated for their propensity to enable compliant and complex robot-environment interactions. Soft robotic manipulators, or slender continuum structure robots have the potential to exploit these interactions to enable new…