Related papers: Thermally-Resilient Soft Gripper for On-Orbit Oper…
Almost all robotic systems in use have hard shells, which is limiting in many ways their full potential of physical interaction with humans or their surrounding environment. Robots with soft-shell covers offer an alternative morphology…
Soft robotics is a rapidly growing field that spans the fields of chemistry, materials science, and engineering. Due to the diverse background of the field, there have been contrasting naming schemes such as 'intelligent', 'smart' and…
Robot arms that assist humans should be able to pick up, move, and release everyday objects. Today's assistive robot arms use rigid grippers to pinch items between fingers; while these rigid grippers are well suited for large and heavy…
Rapid aerial grasping through robots can lead to many applications that utilize fast and dynamic picking and placing of objects. Rigid grippers traditionally used in aerial manipulators require high precision and specific object geometries…
In this paper, we propose a single-actuator gripper that can lift thin objects lying on a flat surface, in addition to the ability as a standard parallel gripper. The key is a crawler on the fingertip, which is underactuated together with…
Future multi-spacecraft missions require robust autonomous trajectory optimization capabilities to ensure safe and efficient rendezvous operations. This capability hinges on solving non-convex optimal control problems in real-time, although…
Orbital torque (OT) offers a highly efficient way for electrical magnetization manipulation. However, its potential in the emerging field of flexible spintronics remains largely unexplored. Here, we demonstrate a flexible and robust OT…
Manipulation and grasping with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) currently require accurate positioning and are often executed at reduced speed to ensure successful grasps. This is due to the fact that typical UAVs can only accommodate rigid…
Robots built from soft materials can alter their shape and size in a particular profile. This shape-changing ability could be extremely helpful for rescue robots and those operating in unknown terrains and environments. In changing shape,…
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…
Soft robotics gripper have shown great promise in handling fragile and geometrically complex objects. However, most existing solutions rely on bulky actuators, complex control strategies, or advanced tactile sensing to achieve stable and…
Grasping is an essential capability for most robots in practical applications. Soft robotic grippers are considered as a critical part of robotic grasping and have attracted considerable attention in terms of the advantages of the high…
Soft robotic grippers facilitate contact-rich manipulation, including robust grasping of varied objects. Yet the beneficial compliance of a soft gripper also results in significant deformation that can make precision manipulation…
This paper presents a novel fabric-based thermal-haptic interface for virtual reality and teleoperation. It integrates pneumatic actuation and conductive fabric with an innovative ultra-lightweight design, achieving only 2~g for each finger…
Gripping and holding of objects are key tasks for robotic manipulators. The development of universal grippers able to pick up unfamiliar objects of widely varying shape and surface properties remains, however, challenging. Most current…
Soft robotic fingers can safely grasp fragile or variable form objects, but their force capacity is limited, especially with less contact area: precision grasps and when objects are smaller or not spherical. Current research is improving…
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…
In the recent years, there has been a growing interest in droplet-based (digital) microfluidics for which, reliable means of droplet manipulation are required. In this study we demonstrate thermal actuation of droplets on liquid platforms,…
Agricultural robotics and automation are facing some challenges rooted in the high variability 9 of products, task complexity, crop quality requirement, and dense vegetation. Such a set of 10 challenges demands a more versatile and safe…
This paper proposes a new variable stiffness soft gripper that enables high-performance grasping tasks in industrial applications. The design of the proposed monolithic soft gripper includes a middle bellow and two side bellows (i.e.,…