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Navigation and motion control of a robot to a destination are tasks that have historically been performed with the assumption that contact with the environment is harmful. This makes sense for rigid-bodied robots where obstacle collisions…
Inspired by the vertebrate branch of the animal kingdom, articulated soft robots are robotic systems embedding elastic elements into a classic rigid (skeleton-like) structure. Leveraging on their bodies elasticity, soft robots promise to…
The ability of robots to navigate through doors is crucial for their effective operation in indoor environments. Consequently, extensive research has been conducted to develop robots capable of opening specific doors. However, the diverse…
Humans can effortlessly perform very complex, dexterous manipulation tasks by reacting to sensor observations. In contrast, robots can not perform reactive manipulation and they mostly operate in open-loop while interacting with their…
An important aspect of intelligence is the ability to adapt to a novel task without any direct experience (zero-shot), based on its relationship to previous tasks. Humans can exhibit this cognitive flexibility. By contrast, models that…
Today robots must be safe, versatile, and user-friendly to operate in unstructured and human-populated environments. Dynamical system-based imitation learning enables robots to perform complex tasks stably and without explicit programming,…
Practical use of robotic manipulators made from soft materials requires generating and executing complex motions. We present the first approach for generating trajectories of a thermally-actuated soft robotic manipulator. Based on…
Adaptive morphogenetic robots adapt their morphology and control policies to meet changing tasks and environmental conditions. Many such systems leverage soft components, which enable shape morphing but also introduce simulation and control…
Robot manipulation in cluttered scenes often requires contact-rich interactions with objects. It can be more economical to interact via non-prehensile actions, for example, push through other objects to get to the desired grasp pose,…
Embodied reasoning systems integrate robotic hardware and cognitive processes to perform complex tasks, typically in response to a natural language query about a specific physical environment. This usually involves changing the belief about…
The deformable and continuum nature of soft robots promises versatility and adaptability. However, control of modular, multi-limbed soft robots for terrestrial locomotion is challenging due to the complex robot structure, actuator mechanics…
This review explores biologically inspired learning as a model for intelligent robot control and sensing technology on the basis of specific examples. Hebbian synaptic learning is discussed as a functionally relevant model for machine…
We propose to make the physical characteristics of a robot oscillate while it learns to improve its behavioral performance. We consider quantities such as mass, actuator strength, and size that are usually fixed in a robot, and show that…
A standard motion control with feedback of the output displacement cannot handle unforeseen contact with environment without penetrating into the soft, i.e. viscoelastic, materials or even damaging the fragile materials. Robotics and…
What we appreciate in dance is the ability of people to sponta- neously improvise new movements and choreographies, sur- rendering to the music rhythm, being inspired by the cur- rent perceptions and sensations and by previous experiences,…
Mass customization and shorter manufacturing cycles are becoming more important among small and medium-sized companies. However, classical industrial robots struggle to cope with product variation and dynamic environments. In this paper, we…
Recent studies have demonstrated the immense potential of exploiting muscle actuator morphology for natural and robust movement -- in simulation. A validation on real robotic hardware is yet missing. In this study, we emulate muscle…
Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…
Soft robots have been leveraged in considerable areas like surgery, rehabilitation, and bionics due to their softness, flexibility, and safety. However, it is challenging to produce two same soft robots even with the same mold and…
Developing soft circuits from individual soft logic gates poses a unique challenge: with increasing numbers of logic gates, the design and implementation of circuits leads to inefficiencies due to mathematically unoptimized circuits and…