Related papers: Cosserat Rod Modeling and Validation for a Soft Co…

Continuum robots are becoming increasingly popular for applications which require the robots to deform and change shape, while also being compliant. A cable-driven continuum robot is one of the most commonly used type. Typical cable driven…

Back injuries are the most prevalent work-related musculoskeletal disorders and represent a major cause of disability. Although innovations in wearable robots aim to alleviate this hazard, the majority of existing exoskeletons are obtrusive…

Compared with traditional rigid-body robots, soft robots not only exhibit unprecedented adaptation and flexibility but also present novel challenges in their modeling and control because of their infinite degrees of freedom. Most of the…

Tendon-actuated concentric tube mechanisms combine the advantages of tendon-driven continuum robots and concentric tube robots while addressing their respective limitations. They overcome the restricted degrees of freedom often seen in…

The paper presents a constraint-based collision model for Cosserat rods, able to handle dynamic or static contact between a large number of highly flexible structures. The model provides the required collision impulses prior to updating the…

This paper is concerned with the problem of estimating (interpolating and smoothing) the shape (pose and the six modes of deformation) of a slender flexible body from multiple camera measurements. This problem is important in both biology,…

To address the issues that arise due to the manual navigation of guidewires in endovascular interventions, research in medical robotics has taken a strong interest in developing robotically steerable guidewires, which offer the possibility…

Soft, growing inflated beam robots, also known as everting vine robots, have previously been shown to navigate confined spaces with ease. Less is known about their ability to navigate three-dimensional open spaces where they have the…

Obtaining dynamic models of continuum soft robots is central to the analysis and control of soft robots, and researchers have devoted much attention to the challenge of proposing both data-driven and first-principle solutions. Both avenues…

Soft robots have many advantages over rigid robots thanks to their compliant and passive nature. However, it is generally challenging to model the dynamics of soft robots due to their high spatial dimensionality, making it difficult to use…

Tendon-driven robotic catheters are capable of precise execution of minimally invasive cardiac procedures including ablations and imaging. These procedures require accurate mathematical models of not only the catheter and tendons but also…

The design and control of soft robots operating in fluid environments requires a careful understanding of the interplay between large elastic body deformations and hydrodynamic forces. Here we show that this interplay leads to novel…

Everting, soft growing vine robots benefit from reduced friction with their environment, which allows them to navigate challenging terrain. Vine robots can use air pouches attached to their sides for lateral steering. However, when all…

Soft robots are inherently compliant and have a strong potential to realize human-friendly and safe robots. Despite continued research highlighting the potential of soft robots, they remain largely confined to laboratory settings. In this…

In this paper, we study integrated estimation and control of soft robots. A significant challenge in deploying closed loop controllers is reliable proprioception via integrated sensing in soft robots. Despite the considerable advances…

Active control of the shape of soft robots is challenging. Despite having an infinite number of passive degrees of freedom (DOFs), soft robots typically only have a few actively controllable DOFs, limited by the number of degrees of…

Simulating soft robots in cluttered environments remains an open problem due to the challenge of capturing complex dynamics and interactions with the environment. Furthermore, fast simulation is desired for quickly exploring robot behaviors…

The purpose of this research is to design, fabricate and test a tendon driven a continuum soft robot with three modular segments, each of which has a tunable stiffness enabled by layer jamming technology. Compared with previous studies, the…

Growing soft materials which follow a 3D path in space are critical to applications such as search and rescue and minimally invasive surgery. Here, we present a concept for a single-input growing multi-stable soft material, based on a…

Tip-growing eversion robots are renowned for their ability to access remote spaces through narrow passages. However, achieving reliable navigation remains a significant challenge. Existing solutions often rely on artificial muscles…