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Estimating a soft robot's pose and applied forces, also called proprioception, is crucial for safe interaction of the robot with its environment. However, most solutions for soft robot proprioception use dedicated sensors, particularly for…
The technological transition from soft machines to soft robots necessarily passes through the integration of soft electronics and sensors. This allows for the establishment of feedback control systems while preserving the softness of the…
If human experience is any guide, operating effectively in unstructured environments -- like homes and offices -- requires robots to sense the forces during physical interaction. Yet, the lack of a versatile, accessible, and easily…
Integrating Brain-Machine Interfaces into non-clinical applications like robot motion control remains difficult - despite remarkable advancements in clinical settings. Specifically, EEG-based motor imagery systems are still error-prone,…
Legged locomotion benefits from embodied sensing, where perception emerges from the physical interaction between body and environment. We present a soft-surfaced, vision-based tactile foot sensor that endows a bipedal robot with a skin-like…
Tactile sensing is fundamental to robotic systems, enabling interactions through physical contact in multiple tasks. Despite its importance, achieving high-resolution, large-area tactile sensing remains challenging. Electrical Impedance…
This paper introduces a learning-based modeling framework for a magnetically steerable soft suction device designed for endoscopic endonasal brain tumor resection. The device is miniaturized (4 mm outer diameter, 2 mm inner diameter, 40 mm…
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,…
High-resolution tactile sensing can provide accurate information about local contact in contact-rich robotic tasks. However, the deployment of such tasks in unstructured environments remains under-investigated. To improve the robustness of…
Soft grippers are gaining significant attention in the manipulation of elastic objects, where it is required to handle soft and unstructured objects which are vulnerable to deformations. A crucial problem is to estimate the physical…
The growing adoption of lattice-based structures in soft robotics creates a need for advanced sensing solutions capable of monitoring their global deformation, particularly compression and extension. In this work, we address this challenge…
Soft robots are powerful tools for manipulating delicate objects, yet their adoption is hindered by two gaps: the lack of integrated tactile sensing and sensor signal distortion caused by actuator deformations. This paper addresses these…
While gesture recognition using vision or robot skins is an active research area in Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC), this paper explores deep learning methods relying solely on a robot's built-in joint sensors, eliminating the need for…
This paper presents a novel vision-based proprioception approach for a soft robotic finger that can estimate and reconstruct tactile interactions in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. The key to this system lies in the finger's…
Continuum robots have been widely adopted in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS) because of their compact size and high flexibility. However, their proprioceptive capabilities remain limited, particularly in narrow lumens,…
General robot manipulation requires the handling of previously unseen objects. Learning a physically accurate model at test time can provide significant benefits in data efficiency, predictability, and reuse between tasks. Tactile sensing…
Accurate knowledge of the state variables in a dynamical system is critical for effective control, diagnosis, and supervision, especially when direct measurements of all states are infeasible. This paper presents a novel approach to…
Deep learning and reinforcement learning methods have been shown to enable learning of flexible and complex robot controllers. However, the reliance on large amounts of training data often requires data collection to be carried out in…
We introduce a novel shape-sensing method using Resistive Flex Sensors (RFS) embedded in cable-driven Continuum Dexterous Manipulators (CDMs). The RFS is predominantly sensitive to deformation rather than direct forces, making it a…
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…