Related papers: Computational synthesis of locomotive soft robots …
To overcome the obstructions imposed by high-dimensional bipedal models, we embed a stable walking motion in an attractive low-dimensional surface of the system's state space. The process begins with trajectory optimization to design an…
Soft materials have many important roles in animal locomotion and object manipulation. In robotic applications soft materials can store and release energy, absorb impacts, increase compliance and increase the range of possible shape…
A topology optimization method is presented for the design of periodic microstructured materials with prescribed homogenized nonlinear constitutive properties over finite strain ranges. The mechanical model assumes linear elastic isotropic…
This paper presents a soft earthworm robot that is capable of both efficient locomotion and obstacle avoidance. The robot is designed to replicate the unique locomotion mechanisms of earthworms, which enable them to move through narrow and…
In this series of papers, we present a motion planning framework for planning comfortable and customizable motion of nonholonomic mobile robots such as intelligent wheelchairs and autonomous cars. In this first one we present the…
Rigid robots were extensively researched, whereas soft robotics remains an underexplored field. Utilizing soft-legged robots in performing tasks as a replacement for human beings is an important stride to take, especially under harsh and…
Evolution sculpts both the body plans and nervous systems of agents together over time. In contrast, in AI and robotics, a robot's body plan is usually designed by hand, and control policies are then optimized for that fixed design. The…
Inspired by the necessity of morphological adaptation in animals, a growing body of work has attempted to expand robot training to encompass physical aspects of a robot's design. However, reinforcement learning methods capable of optimizing…
While soft robot manipulators offer compelling advantages over rigid counterparts, including inherent compliance, safe human-robot interaction, and the ability to conform to complex geometries, accurate forward modeling from low-dimensional…
Multimodal locomotion is crucial for an animal's adaptability in unstructured wild environments. Similarly, in the human gastrointestinal tract, characterized by viscoelastic mucus, complex rugae, and narrow sphincters like the cardia,…
Moving Morphable Component (MMC) based topology optimization approach is an explicit algorithm since the boundary of the entity explicitly described by its functions. Compared with other pixel or node point-based algorithms, it is optimized…
Legged rovers provide enhanced mobility compared to wheeled platforms, enabling navigation on steep and irregular planetary terrains. However, traditional legged locomotion might be energetically inefficient and potentially dangerous to the…
Terrain geometry is, in general, non-smooth, non-linear, non-convex, and, if perceived through a robot-centric visual unit, appears partially occluded and noisy. This work presents the complete control pipeline capable of handling the…
Metal additive manufacturing (AM) processes often fabricate a near-net shape that includes the as-designed part as well as the sacrificial support structures that need to be machined away by subtractive manufacturing (SM), for instance…
Soft robotic hands promise to provide compliant and safe interaction with objects and environments. However, designing soft hands to be both compliant and functional across diverse use cases remains challenging. Although co-design of…
Robust topology optimization (RTO) improves the robustness of designs with respect to random sources in real-world structures, yet an accurate sensitivity analysis requires the solution of many systems of equations at each optimization…
Navigation is a fundamental capacity for mobile robots, enabling them to operate autonomously in complex and dynamic environments. Conventional approaches use probabilistic models to localize robots and build maps simultaneously using…
Designing microstructures with coupled cross-physics objectives is a fundamental challenge where traditional topology optimization is often computationally prohibitive and deep generative models frequently suffer from physical…
Robotic manipulation in complex, constrained spaces is vital for widespread applications but challenging, particularly when navigating narrow passages with elongated objects. Existing planning methods often fail in these low-clearance…
Robot co-design, where the morphology of a robot is optimized jointly with a learned policy to solve a specific task, is an emerging area of research. It holds particular promise for soft robots, which are amenable to novel manufacturing…