Related papers: Elastic energy storage of spring-driven jumping ro…
Collaborative robots must simultaneously be safe enough to operate in close proximity to human operators and powerful enough to assist users in industrial tasks such as lifting heavy equipment. The requirement for safety necessitates that…
Hybrid aerial--ground robots offer both traversability and endurance, but stair-like discontinuities create a trade-off: wheels alone often stall at edges, while flight is energy-hungry for small height gains. We propose an energy-aware…
A spring in parallel with an effort source (e.g., electric motor or human muscle) can reduce its energy consumption and effort (i.e., torque or force) depending on the spring stiffness, spring preload, and actuation task. However, selecting…
In this paper, we introduce a kinodynamic model predictive control (MPC) framework that exploits unidirectional parallel springs (UPS) to improve the energy efficiency of dynamic legged robots. The proposed method employs a hierarchical…
The robotic fish with high propulsion efficiency and good maneuverability achieves underwater fishlike propulsion by commonly adopting the motor to drive the fishtail, causing the significant fluctuations of the motor power due to the…
Jumping and hopping locomotion are efficient means of traversing unstructured rugged terrain with the former being the focus of roboticists; a focus that has recently been changing. This focus has led to significant performance and…
In this study, one-dimensional systems of masses connected by springs, i.e., spring-chain systems, are investigated numerically. The average kinetic energy of chain-end particles of these systems is larger than that of other particles,…
Compliance in actuation has been exploited to generate highly dynamic maneuvers such as throwing that take advantage of the potential energy stored in joint springs. However, the energy storage and release could not be well-timed yet. On…
Wearable and legged robot designers face multiple challenges when choosing actuation. Traditional fully actuated designs using electric motors are multifunctional but oversized and inefficient for bearing conservative loads and for being…
Search and rescue (SAR) robots are required to quickly traverse terrain and perform high-force rescue tasks, necessitating both terrain adaptability and controlled high-force output. Few platforms exist today for SAR, and fewer still have…
In this paper, we study a wheeled robot with a prismatic extension joint. This allows the robot to build up momentum to perform jumps over obstacles and to swing up to the upright position after the loss of balance. We propose a template…
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…
Robots have been critical instruments to space exploration by providing access to environments beyond human limitations. Jumping robot concepts are attractive solutions to negotiate complex terrain. However, among the engineering challenges…
Existing research has yet to reach a consensus on whether and how small flying animals utilize elastic energy storage mechanisms to reduce flight energy expenditure, and there is a lack of systematic and universal methods for assessment. To…
Wearable robots are limited by their actuators performances because they must bear the weight of their own power system and energy source. This paper explores the idea of leveraging hybrid modes to meet multiple operating points with a…
We investigate the time-evolution of elastoplastic materials reinforced by randomly distributed long-range interactions. Starting from a rate-independent system on a discrete spring lattice that combines local linearized elasticity,…
In this paper, we present a hardware-control co-design approach that enables efficient and versatile roller skating on quadrupedal robots equipped with passive wheels. Passive-wheel skating reduces leg inertia and improves energy…
In legged locomotion, the relationship between different gait behaviors and energy consumption must consider the full-body dynamics and the robot control as a whole, which cannot be captured by simple models. This work studies the robot…
Compliant robotics have seen successful applications in energy efficient locomotion and cyclic manipulation. However, exploitation of variable physical impedance for energy efficient sequential movements has not been extensively addressed.…
Jumping is an efficient locomotion strategy to traverse cluttered, uneven, or unstable environments in nature, yet replicating continuous, autonomous leaping in soft robots remains challenging due to limited energy storage and reliance on…