Related papers: A Soft Continuum Robot with Self-Controllable Vari…
Experiments on physical continuum robot are the gold standard for evaluations. Currently, as no commercial continuum robot platform is available, a large variety of early-stage prototypes exists. These prototypes are developed by individual…
Soft robots have attracted much attention in recent years owing to their high adaptability. Long articulated soft robots enable diverse operations, and tip-extending robots that navigate their environment through growth are highly effective…
Navigating rugged terrain and steep slopes is a challenge for mobile robots. Conventional legged and wheeled systems struggle with these environments due to limited traction and stability. Northeastern University's COBRA (Crater Observing…
Robotic cutting is a challenging contact-rich manipulation task where the robot must simultaneously negotiate unknown object mechanics, large contact forces, and precise motion requirements. We introduce a new active virtual-model control…
Soft robots, inspired by elephant trunks or octopus arms, offer extraordinary flexibility to bend, twist, and elongate in ways that rigid robots cannot. However, their motion planning remains a challenge, especially in cluttered…
Robotic cutting of soft materials is critical for applications such as food processing, household automation, and surgical manipulation. As in other areas of robotics, simulators can facilitate controller verification, policy learning, and…
Evolutionary robotics has aimed to optimize robot control and morphology to produce better and more robust robots. Most previous research only addresses optimization of control, and does this only in simulation. We have developed a…
Future robots will navigate perilous, remote environments with resilience and autonomy. Researchers have proposed building robots with compliant bodies to enhance robustness, but this approach often sacrifices the autonomous capabilities…
Soft-growing robots (i.e., vine robots) are a promising class of soft robots that allow for navigation and growth in tightly confined environments. However, these robots remain challenging to model and control due to the complex interplay…
Soft robots are well suited for contact-rich tasks due to their compliance, yet this property makes accurate and tractable modeling challenging. Planning motions with dynamically-feasible trajectories requires models that capture arbitrary…
Soft growing robots, are a type of robots that are designed to move and adapt to their environment in a similar way to how plants grow and move with potential applications where they could be used to navigate through tight spaces, dangerous…
Soft actuators offer compliant and safe interaction with an unstructured environment compared to their rigid counterparts. However, control of these systems is often challenging because they are inherently under-actuated, have infinite…
Soft robots can safely interact with environments because of their mechanical compliance. Self-collision is also employed in the modern design of soft robots to enhance their performance during different tasks. However, developing an…
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…
This paper presents a study on the backstepping control of tendon-driven continuum robots for large deflections using the Cosserat rod model. Continuum robots are known for their flexibility and adaptability, making them suitable for…
Colonoscopy is considered the golden standard for cancer screening of the lower gastrointestinal (GI) tract, with screening programs all over the world considering lowering the recommended screening age. Nonetheless, conventional…
Soft optical tactile sensors enable robots to manipulate deformable objects by capturing important features such as high-resolution contact geometry and estimations of object compliance. This work presents a variable stiffness soft tactile…
There is a surge of research interest in the field of tensegrity robotics. Robots developed under this paradigm provide many advantages and have distinguishing features in terms of structural compliance, dexterity, safety, and weight…
This paper presents a soft robot finger capable of adaptive-twist deformation to grasp objects by wrapping them. For a soft hand to grasp and pick-up one object from densely contained multiple objects, a soft finger requires the…
Growing robots based on the eversion principle are known for their ability to extend rapidly, from within, along their longitudinal axis, and, in doing so, reach deep into hitherto inaccessible, remote spaces. Despite many advantages,…