Related papers: A 'MAP' to find high-performing soft robot designs…
Generative design refers to computational design methods that can automatically conduct design exploration under constraints defined by designers. Among many approaches, topology optimization-based generative designs aim to explore diverse…
Exploration is a fundamental problem in robot autonomy. A major limitation, however, is that during exploration robots oftentimes have to rely on on-board systems alone for state estimation, accumulating significant drift over time in large…
As robots become more prevalent, optimizing their design for better performance and efficiency is becoming increasingly important. However, current robot design practices overlook the impact of perception and design choices on a robot's…
A fundamental challenge in multi-robot motion planning is achieving sufficient coordination to avoid inter-robot conflicts without incurring the large computational expense of searching the joint configuration space of the robot group. In…
We present a self-contained, soft robotic hand composed of soft pneumatic actuator modules that are equipped with strain and pressure sensing. We show how this data can be used to discern whether a grasp was successful. Co-locating sensing…
Topology optimization (TO) has experienced a dramatic development over the last decades aided by the arising of metamaterials and additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, and it is intended to achieve the current and future challenges. In…
In the present paper, an integrated paradigm for topology optimization on complex surfaces with arbitrary genus is proposed. The approach is constructed based on the two-dimensional (2D) Moving Morphable Component (MMC) framework, where a…
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…
Mapping is one of the crucial tasks enabling autonomous navigation of a mobile robot. Conventional mapping methods output a dense geometric map representation, e.g. an occupancy grid, which is not trivial to keep consistent for prolonged…
This paper demonstrates the computational design of soft elastomeric pneumatic actuators using nonlinear topology optimization. An existing density- and porohyperelasticity-based topology optimization framework was extended from 2D to 3D…
Desktop organization remains challenging for service robots because of heterogeneous objects and diverse manipulation objectives, such as collection and stacking. In this article, a task-oriented framework is presented for organizing planar…
Robots and intelligent systems that sense or interact with the world are increasingly being used to automate a wide array of tasks. The ability of these systems to complete these tasks depends on a large range of technologies such as the…
Currently, state-of-the-art exploration methods maintain high-resolution map representations in order to optimize exploration goals in each step that maximizes information gain. However, during exploring, those "optimal" selections could…
We present a level-set based topology optimization algorithm for design optimization problems involving an arbitrary number of different materials, where the evolution of a design is solely guided by topological derivatives. Our method can…
Generating overtaking trajectories in high-speed scenarios is typically addressed through hierarchical planning, which often suffers from local optima due to single initial solutions and low computational efficiency during numerical…
Passive deformation due to compliance is a commonly used benefit of soft robots, providing opportunities to achieve robust actuation with few active degrees of freedom. Soft growing robots in particular have shown promise in navigation of…
The increasing availability of full-field displacement data from imaging techniques in experimental mechanics is determining a gradual shift in the paradigm of material model calibration and discovery, from using several simple-geometry…
This paper presents RichMap, a high-precision reachability map representation designed to balance efficiency and flexibility for versatile robot manipulation tasks. By refining the classic grid-based structure, we propose a streamlined…
Soft robots are distinguished by their flexibility and adaptability, allowing them to perform nearly impossible tasks for rigid robots. However, controlling their behavior is challenging due to their nonlinear material response and infinite…
Optimizing the morphologies and the controllers that adapt to various tasks is a critical issue in the field of robot design, aka. embodied intelligence. Previous works typically model it as a joint optimization problem and use search-based…