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Research on the co-optimization of soft robotic design and control requires rapid means for real-world validation. Existing creation pipelines do not allow for the swift prototyping of soft robots to quickly test various design…

We introduce shape-changing swarm robots. A swarm of self-transformable robots can both individually and collectively change their configuration to display information, actuate objects, act as tangible controllers, visualize data, and…

Soft robotic instruments could navigate delicate, tortuous anatomy more safely than rigid tools, but clinical adoption is limited by insufficient tip functionalization and real-time feedback at the tissue interface. Few sensing and…

This article takes a step to provide humanoid robots with adaptive morphology abilities. We present a systematic approach for enabling robotic covers to morph their shape, with an overall size fitting the anthropometric dimensions of a…

Modularity in robotics holds great potential. In principle, modular robots can be disassembled and reassembled in different robots, and possibly perform new tasks. Nevertheless, actually exploiting modularity is yet an unsolved problem:…

With application in the robotics and automation, more and more it becomes necessary the development of applications based on methodologies that facilitate future modifications, updates and enhancements in the original projected system. This…

We present a user-friendly interface to teleoperate a soft robot manipulator in a complex environment. Key components of the system include a manipulator with a grasping end-effector that grows via tip eversion, gesture-based control, and…

Modular and reconfigurable robotic systems have been designed to provide a customized solution for the non-repetitive tasks to be performed in a constrained environment. Customized solutions are normally extracted from task-based…

In modern applications of heterogeneous liquid-phase nanocatalysis, the catalysts (e.g., metal nanoparticles) need to be typically affixed to a colloidal carrier system for stability and easy handling. "Passive carriers" (e.g., simple…

This paper presents FoamFactor, a novel material with tunable stiffness and compressibility between hydration states, and a tailored pipeline to design and fabricate artifacts consisting of it. This technique compounds hydrogel with…

We present a fully-integrated sensing and control system which enables mobile manipulator robots to execute building tasks with millimeter-scale accuracy on building construction sites. The approach leverages multi-modal sensing…

Macroscale robotic systems have demonstrated great capabilities of high speed, precise, and agile functions. However, the ability of soft robots to perform complex tasks, especially in centimeter and millimeter scale, remains limited due to…

This paper presents a novel modular robot system that can self-reconfigure to achieve omnidirectional movements for collaborative object transportation. Each robotic module is equipped with a steerable omni-wheel for navigation and is…

Mechanical metamaterials often exhibit pattern transformations through instabilities, enabling applications in, e.g., soft robotics, sound reduction, and biomedicine. These transformations and their resulting mechanical properties are…

Organic molecules with nonlinear optical behavior have advanced a wide range of fields spanning from integrated photonics to biological imaging. With advances in microscopy, an emerging application is multifunctional nonlinear organic…

This paper presents a modular, reconfigurable robot platform for robot manipulation in agriculture. While robot manipulation promises great advancements in automating challenging, complex tasks that are currently best left to humans, it is…

Mobile robots have received a great deal of research in recent years. A significant amount of research has been published in many aspects related to mobile robots. Most of the research is devoted to design and develop some control…

Reconfigurable robot swarms are capable of connecting with each other to form complex structures. Current mechanical or magnetic connection mechanisms can be complicated to manufacture, consume high power, have a limited load-bearing…

For successful goal-directed human-robot interaction, the robot should adapt to the intentions and actions of the collaborating human. This can be supported by musculoskeletal or data-driven human models, where the former are limited to…

In this paper, we introduce a design principle to develop novel soft modular robots based on tensegrity structures and inspired by the cytoskeleton of living cells. We describe a novel strategy to realize tensegrity structures using planar…