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Faced with strong demand for robots working in underwater pipeline environments, a novel underwater multi-model locomotion robot is designed and studied in this research. By mimicking the earthworm's metameric body, the robot is segmented…

Nature has evolved a vast array of strategies for propulsion at the air-fluid interface. Inspired by a survival mechanism initiated by the honeybee (Apis mellifera) trapped on the surface of water, we here present the SurferBot: a…

This work provides a complete framework for the simulation, co-optimization, and sim-to-real transfer of the design and control of soft legged robots. The compliance of soft robots provides a form of "mechanical intelligence" -- the ability…

In recent years, usage and applications of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles has grown rapidly. Interaction of divers with the AUVs remains an integral part of the usage of AUVs for various applications and makes building robust and efficient…

Undulatory locomotion is a means of self-propulsion that relies on the generation and propagation of waves along a body. As a mode of locomotion it is primitive and relatively simple, yet can be remarkably robust. No wonder then, that it is…

Orb-weaving spiders detect prey on a web using vibration sensors at leg joints. They often dynamically crouch their legs during prey sensing, likely an active sensing strategy. However, how leg crouching enhances sensing is poorly…

Oscillations of flagella and cilia play an important role in biology, which motivates the idea of functional mimicry as part of bio-inspired applications. Nevertheless, it still remains challenging to drive their artificial counterparts to…

In nature, biological organisms jointly evolve both their morphology and their neurological capabilities to improve their chances for survival. Consequently, task information is encoded in both their brains and their bodies. In robotics,…

Animals achieve robust locomotion by offloading regulation from the brain to physical couplings within the body. In contrast, locomotion in artificial systems often depends on centralized processors. We introduce a rapid and autonomous…

The backswimmer fly is an aquatic insect, capable of regulating its buoyancy underwater. Its abdomen is covered with hemoglobin cells, used to bind and release oxygen, reversibly. Upon entering water, the fly entraps an air bubble in a…

Establishing adaptive particles that sense their state, anticipate their evolution, and compute control inputs onboard has been a major challenge in non-equilibrium physics. We address this challenge by realizing an autonomous brainbot,…

Rectilinear crawling locomotion is a primitive and common mode of locomotion in slender, soft-bodied animals. It requires coordinated contractions that propagate along a body that interacts frictionally with its environment. We propose a…

The term embodied intelligence (EI) conveys the notion that body morphology, material properties, interaction with the environment, and control strategies can be purposefully integrated into the process of robotic design to generate…

Recent developments in machine-learning algorithms have led to impressive performance increases in many traditional application scenarios of artificial intelligence research. In the area of deep reinforcement learning, deep learning…

Legged robots offer several advantages when navigating unstructured environments, but they often fall short of the efficiency achieved by wheeled robots. One promising strategy to improve their energy economy is to leverage their natural…

Crawling is a common locomotion mechanism in soft robots and nonskeletal animals. In this work we propose modeling soft-robotic legged locomotion by approximating it with an equivalent articulated robot with elastic joints. For concreteness…

Powered by acoustics, existing therapeutic and diagnostic procedures will become less invasive and new methods will become available that have never been available before. Acoustically driven microrobot navigation based on microbubbles is a…

Passive elastic elements can contribute to stability, energetic efficiency, and impact absorption in both biological and robotic systems. They also add dynamical complexity which makes them more challenging to model and control. The impact…

Swarm robotics is a promising approach for the coordination of large numbers of robots. While previous studies have shown that evolutionary robotics techniques can be applied to obtain robust and efficient self-organized behaviors for robot…

Inspired by the snap-through action of a steel hairclip, we propose a design method for in-plane prestressed mechanisms that exhibit biomimetic morphing and high locomotion performance. Compliant bistable flapping mechanisms are fabricated…