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In many human-in-the-loop robotic applications such as robot-assisted surgery and remote teleoperation, predicting the intended motion of the human operator may be useful for successful implementation of shared control, guidance virtual…
Synthetic nanomotors powered by chemical reactions have been designed to act as vehicles for active cargo transport, drug delivery as well as a variety of other uses. Collections of such motors, acting in consort, can self-assemble to form…
The paper is mostly devoted to applications of a novel optimal control theory for perturbed sweeping/Moreau processes to two practical dynamical models. The first model addresses mobile robot dynamics with obstacles, and the second one…
Inspired by spiking neural feedback, we propose a spiking controller for efficient locomotion in a soft robotic crawler. Its bistability, akin to neural fast positive feedback, combined with a sensorimotor slow negative feedback loop,…
Active many-body systems composed of many interacting degrees of freedom often operate out of equilibrium, giving rise to non-trivial emergent behaviors which can be functional in both evolved and engineered contexts. This naturally…
Marine exploration is essential to understanding ocean processes and organisms. While the use of current unmanned underwater vehicles has enabled many discoveries, there are still plenty of limitations toward exploring complex environments.…
We introduce a generic, purely mechanical model for environment sensitive motion of mammalian cells that is applicable to chemotaxis, haptotaxis, and durotaxis as modes of motility. It is able to theoretically explain all relevant…
Multi-legged mobile robots possess high mobility performance in rough terrain environments, stemming from their high postural stability, joint flexibility, and the redundancy provided by multiple legs. In prior research on navigating…
Understanding interactions between chiral active particles -- self-propelling and self-rotating entities -- is crucial for uncovering how chiral active matter self-organizes into dynamic structures. Although fluctuation-induced forces in…
Circumnavigation control is useful in real-world applications such as entrapping a hostile target. In this paper, we consider a heterogeneous multi-robot system where robots have different physical properties, such as maximum movement…
Series elastic robots are best able to follow trajectories which obey the limitations of their actuators, since they cannot instantly change their joint forces. In fact, the performance of series elastic actuators can surpass that of ideal…
We extend a model for the morphology and dynamics of a crawling eukaryotic cell to describe cells on micropatterned substrates. This model couples cell morphology, adhesion, and cytoskeletal flow in response to active stresses induced by…
Demonstrating acrobatic behavior of a humanoid robot such as flips and spinning jumps requires systematic approaches across hardware design, motion planning, and control. In this paper, we present a new humanoid robot design, an…
Rare transitions between long-lived metastable states underlie a great variety of physical, chemical and biological processes. Our quantitative understanding of reactive mechanisms has been driven forward by the insights of transition state…
Tried-and-true flapping wing robot simulation is essential in developing flapping wing mechanisms and algorithms. This paper presents a novel application-oriented flapping wing platform, highly compatible with various mechanical designs and…
We study the asymptotic behaviour of a family of dynamic models of crawling locomotion, with the aim of characterizing a gait as a limit property. The locomotors, which might have a discrete or continuous body, move on a line with a…
Active matter physics and swarm robotics have provided powerful tools for the study and control of ensembles driven by internal sources. At the macroscale, controlling swarms typically utilizes significant memory, processing power, and…
When navigating complex environments, animals often combine multiple strategies to mitigate the effects of external disturbances. These modalities often correspond to different sources of information, leading to speed-accuracy trade-offs.…
Navigation of microorganisms is controlled by internal processes ultimately sensitive to mechanical or chemical signaling encountered along the path. In many natural environments, such as porous soils or physiological ducts, motile species…
Locomotion is typically studied either in continuous media where bodies and legs experience forces generated by the flowing medium, or on solid substrates dominated by friction. In the former, centralized coordination is believed to…