Related papers: Optimized Design of a Soft Actuator Considering Fo…
This work studies the design of safe control policies for large-scale non-linear systems operating in uncertain environments. In such a case, the robust control framework is a principled approach to safety that aims to maximize the…
High-speed machinery is often designed to pass several $"$critical$"$ speeds, where vibration levels can be very high. To reduce vibrations, rotors usually undergo a mass balancing process, where the machine is rotated at its full speed…
An autonomous system is presented to solve the problem of in space assembly, which can be used to further the NASA goal of deep space exploration. Of particular interest is the assembly of large truss structures, which requires precise and…
The existence of multiple irregular obstacles in the environment introduces nonconvex constraints into the optimization for motion planning, which makes the optimal control problem hard to handle. One efficient approach to address this…
This paper proposes a low order geometrically exact flexible beam formulation based on the utilisation of generic beam shape functions to approximate distributed kinematic properties of the deformed structure. The proposed nonlinear beam…
Textile pneumatic actuators can provide useful wearable haptic feedback when embedded in gloves, armbands, and other smart garments. Here we investigate actuators fabricated from thermoplastic coated textiles. We measure the effects of…
This paper studies the robust optimal control design for uncertain nonlinear systems from a perspective of robust adaptive dynamic programming (robust-ADP). The objective is to fill up a gap in the past literature of ADP where dynamic…
In the field of soft robotics, flexibility, adaptability, and functionality define a new era of robotic systems that can safely deform, reach, and grasp. To optimize the design of soft robotic systems, it is critical to understand their…
Soft robots have been increasingly utilized as sophisticated tools in physical rehabilitation, particularly for assisting patients with neuromotor impairments. However, many soft robotics for rehabilitation applications are characterized by…
Grip surfaces with tunable friction can actively modify contact conditions, enabling transitions between higher- and lower-friction states for grasp adjustment. Friction can be increased to grip securely and then decreased to gently release…
A design problem of finding an optimally stiff membrane structure by selecting one-dimensional fiber reinforcements is formulated and solved. The membrane model is derived in a novel manner from a particular three-dimensional linear elastic…
Although soft robots show safer interactions with their environment than traditional robots, soft mechanisms and actuators still have significant potential for damage or degradation particularly during unmodeled contact. This article…
Developing soft circuits from individual soft logic gates poses a unique challenge: with increasing numbers of logic gates, the design and implementation of circuits leads to inefficiencies due to mathematically unoptimized circuits and…
Soft robots - due to their intrinsic flexibility of the body - can adaptively navigate unstructured environments. One of the most popular locomotion gaits that has been implemented in soft robots is undulation. The undulation motion in soft…
A computationally efficient method is presented for approximate optimization of cutting pattern of frame-supported and pneumatic membrane structures. The plane cutting sheet is generated by minimizing the error from the shape obtained by…
Miniaturized instruments are highly needed for robot assisted medical healthcare and treatment, especially for less invasive surgery as it empowers more flexible access to restricted anatomic intervention. But the robotic design is more…
Pneumatic muscle actuators (PMA) are easy-to-fabricate, lightweight, compliant, and have high power-to-weight ratio, thus making them the ideal actuation choice for many soft and continuum robots. But so far, limited work has been carried…
A hyper-redundant robotic arm is a manipulator with many degrees of freedom, capable of executing tasks in cluttered environments where robotic arms with fewer degrees of freedom are unable to operate. This paper introduces a new method for…
Design optimization of mechanisms is a promising research area as it results in more energy-efficient machines without compromising performance. However, machine builders do not actually use the design methods described in the literature as…
Continuum and soft robots can leverage complex actuator shapes to take on useful shapes while actuating only a few of their many degrees of freedom. Continuum robots that also grow increase the range of potential shapes that can be actuated…