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Soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) produce motions for soft robots with simple pressure input, however they require to be appropriately designed to fit the target application. Available design methods employ kinematic models and optimization…
Faced with complex and unstructured construction environments, wheeled and tracked robots exhibit significant limitations in terrain adaptability and flexibility, making it difficult to meet the requirements of autonomous operation.…
When deploying a testbed infrastructure for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), one of the most challenging feature is to provide repeatable mobility. Wheeled robots, usually employed for such tasks, strive to adapt to the wide range of…
Legged robots constructed from soft materials are commonly claimed to demonstrate safer, more robust environmental interactions than their rigid counterparts. However, this motivating feature of soft robots requires more rigorous…
We present a new open-source torque-controlled legged robot system, with a low-cost and low-complexity actuator module at its core. It consists of a high-torque brushless DC motor and a low-gear-ratio transmission suitable for impedance and…
In this paper, we introduce a software and hardware structure for on-line mobile robotic systems. The hardware mainly consists of a Multi-Sensor Smart Robot connected to the Internet through 3G mobile network. The system employs a…
Current anthropomorphic robotic hands mainly focus on improving their dexterity by devising new mechanical structures and actuation systems. However, most of them rely on a single structure/system (e.g., bone-only) and ignore the fact that…
General-purpose robots should possess human-like dexterity and agility to perform tasks with the same versatility as us. A human-like form factor further enables the use of vast datasets of human-hand interactions. However, the primary…
With robots leaving factories and entering less controlled domains, possibly sharing the space with humans, safety is paramount and multimodal awareness of the body surface and the surrounding environment is fundamental. Taking inspiration…
This paper presents the design, control, and applications of a multi-segment soft robotic arm. In order to design a soft arm with large load capacity, several design principles are proposed by analyzing two kinds of buckling issues, under…
While rigid robots are extensively used in various applications, they are limited in the tasks they can perform and can be unsafe in close human-robot interactions. Soft robots on the other hand surpass the capabilities of rigid robots in…
Hardware platforms for socially interactive robotics can be limited by cost or lack of functionality. This paper presents the overall system -- design, hardware, and software -- for Quori, a novel, affordable, socially interactive humanoid…
Replicating and surpassing the autonomy of natural organisms remains a long-standing goal in robotics. Yet most robotic systems have their structure, materials, and control designed separately, in sharp contrast to the co-evolution in…
The advantage of modular self-reconfigurable robot systems is their flexibility, but this advantage can only be realized if appropriate configurations (shapes) and behaviors (controlling programs) can be selected for a given task. In this…
Nowadays, design and development of legged quadruped robots is a quite active area of scientific research. In fact, the legged robots have become popular due to their capabilities to adapt to harsh terrains and diverse environmental…
Most traditional robotic mechanisms feature inelastic joints that are unable to robustly handle large deformations and off-axis moments. As a result, the applied loads are transferred rigidly throughout the entire structure. The…
Force and proximity sensors are key in robotics, especially when applied in collaborative robots that interact physically or cognitively with humans in real unstructured environments. However, most existing sensors for use in robotics are…
This work presents a system to benchmark humanoid posture control and balance performances under perturbed conditions. The specific benchmarking scenario consists, for example, of balancing upright stance while performing voluntary…
Generally, humanoid robots usually suffer significant impact force when walking or running in a non-predefined environment that could easily damage the actuators due to high stiffness. In recent years, the usages of passive, compliant…
Vertebrate animals benefit from a combination of rigidity for structural support and softness for adaptation. Similarly, integrating rigidity and softness can enhance the versatility of soft robotics. However, the challenges associated with…