Related papers: The "Pac-Man'' Gripper: Tactile Sensing and Graspi…
Robot-to-human object handover is an essential skill for robot assistants, from serving drinks at home to passing surgical tools in the operating room. We expect robots to perform handover robustly -- to release the object only after a firm…
Grasping and manipulating a wide variety of objects is a fundamental skill that would determine the success and wide spread adaptation of robots in homes. Several end-effector designs for robust manipulation have been proposed but they…
Handling oversized, variable-shaped, or delicate objects in transportation, grasping tasks is extremely challenging, mainly due to the limitations of the gripper's shape and size. This paper proposes a novel gripper, Lasso Gripper. Inspired…
Grasp force estimation can help prevent robots from damaging delicate objects during manipulation and improve learning-based robotic control. Integrating force sensing into deformable grippers negotiates trade-offs in cost, complexity,…
Grasping unknown objects has been an active research topic for decades. Approaches range from using various sensors (e.g. vision, tactile) to gain information about the object, to building passively compliant hands that react appropriately…
Grip, walk, crawl, and jump. Soft robots are integrated functional structures composed of compliant mechanisms, whose activity spans various industrial applications such as surgery, healthcare, surveillance, and even planetary exploration.…
Although the multi-jointed underactuated manipulator is highly dexterous, its grasping capacity does not match that of the parallel jaw gripper. This work introduces a fractal gripper to enhance the grasping capacity of multi-joint…
Soft grippers are gaining momentum across applications due to their flexibility and dexterity. However, the infinite-dimensionality and non-linearity associated with soft robots challenge modeling and closed-loop control of soft grippers to…
In our daily life, we often encounter objects that are fragile and can be damaged by excessive grasping force, such as fruits. For these objects, it is paramount to grasp gently -- not using the maximum amount of force possible, but rather…
We introduce the soft curvature and spectroscopy (SCANS) system: a versatile, electronics-free, fluidically actuated soft manipulator capable of assessing the spectral properties of objects either in hand or through pre-touch caging. This…
Regulating grasping force to reduce slippage during dynamic object interaction remains a fundamental challenge in robotic manipulation, especially when objects are manipulated by multiple rolling contacts, have unknown properties (such as…
This paper presents a novel design of a soft tactile finger with omni-directional adaptation using multi-channel optical fibers for rigid-soft interactive grasping. Machine learning methods are used to train a model for real-time prediction…
Soft robotic grippers are essential for grasping delicate, geometrically complex objects in manufacturing, healthcare and agriculture. However, existing grippers struggle to grasp feature-rich objects with high topological variability,…
Soft sensors that can discriminate shear and normal force could help provide machines the fine control desirable for safe and effective physical interactions with people. A capacitive sensor is made for this purpose, composed of patterned…
The perception and recognition of the surroundings is one of the essential tasks for a robot. With preliminary knowledge about a target object, it can perform various manipulation tasks such as rolling motion, palpation, and force control.…
The application of granular jamming in soft robotics is a recent and promising new technology offer exciting possibilities for creating higher performance robotic devices. Granular jamming is achieved via the application of a vacuum…
Fruit harvesting remains predominantly a labor-intensive process, motivating the development of research for robotic grippers. Conventional rigid or vacuum-driven grippers require complex mechanical design or high energy consumption.…
Contact-rich manipulation in unstructured environments demands precise, multimodal perception to enable robust and adaptive control. Vision-based tactile sensors (VBTSs) have emerged as an effective solution; however, conventional VBTSs…
Robotic hands with soft surfaces can perform stable grasping, but the high friction of the soft surfaces makes it difficult to release objects, or to perform operations that require sliding. To solve this issue, we previously developed a…
Aerial robots have garnered significant attention due to their potential applications in various industries, such as inspection, search and rescue, and drone delivery. Successful missions often depend on the ability of these robots to grasp…