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Underwater robots are widely deployed for ocean exploration and manipulation. Underactuated mechanisms are particularly advantageous in aquatic environments, as reducing actuator count lowers the risk of motor leakage while introducing…
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…
Real-time proprioception is a challenging problem for soft robots, which have almost infinite degrees-of-freedom in body deformation. When multiple actuators are used, it becomes more difficult as deformation can also occur on actuators…
Soft pneumatic fingers are of great research interest. However, their significant potential is limited as most of them can generate only one motion, mostly bending. The conventional design of soft fingers does not allow them to switch to…
Many studies have been conducted on Series Elastic Actuators (SEA) for robot joints because they are effective in terms of flexibility, safety, and energy efficiency. The ability of SEA to robustly handle unexpected disturbances has raised…
Multi-flagellated bacteria utilize the hydrodynamic interaction between their filamentary tails, known as flagella, to swim and change their swimming direction in low Reynolds number flow. This interaction, referred to as bundling and…
Much of the Earth and many surfaces of extraterrestrial bodies are composed of in-cohesive particle matter. Locomoting on granular terrain is challenging for common robotic devices, either wheeled or legged. In this work, we discover a…
Spherical robots can conduct surveillance in hostile, cluttered environments without being damaged, as their protective shell can safely house sensors such as cameras. However, lateral oscillations, also known as wobble, occur when these…
Soft robotics is a swiftly evolving field. Pneumatic actuators are suitable for driving soft robots because of their superior performance. However, their control is challenging due to the hysteresis characteristics. In response to this…
Simulating soft robots in cluttered environments remains an open problem due to the challenge of capturing complex dynamics and interactions with the environment. Furthermore, fast simulation is desired for quickly exploring robot behaviors…
Inchworm crawling allows for both quasistatic and dynamic gaits at a wide range of actuation frequencies. This locomotion mechanism is common in nonskeletal animals and exploited extensively in the bio-inspired field of soft robotics. In…
In this paper, we propose a novel design of a hybrid mobile robot with controllable stiffness and deformable shape. Compared to conventional mobile agents, our system can switch between rigid and compliant phases by solidifying or melting…
Multimodal locomotion is crucial for an animal's adaptability in unstructured wild environments. Similarly, in the human gastrointestinal tract, characterized by viscoelastic mucus, complex rugae, and narrow sphincters like the cardia,…
Climbing soft robots are of tremendous interest in both science and engineering due to their potential applications in intelligent surveillance, inspection, maintenance, and detection under environments away from the ground. The challenge…
Growing soft materials which follow a 3D path in space are critical to applications such as search and rescue and minimally invasive surgery. Here, we present a concept for a single-input growing multi-stable soft material, based on a…
In this paper, we present a novel rolling, jumping robot. The robot consists of a driven pendulum mounted to a wheel in a compact, lightweight, 3D printed design. We show that by driving the pendulum to shift the robot's weight…
Bristle-bots are legged robots that can be easily made out of a toothbrush head and a small vibrating engine. Despite their simple appearance, the mechanism enabling them to propel themselves by exploiting friction with the substrate is far…
Soft robots have a myriad of potentials because of their intrinsically compliant bodies, enabling safe interactions with humans and adaptability to unpredictable environments. However, most of them have limited actuation speeds, require…
Robust closed-loop locomotion remains challenging for soft quadruped robots due to high-dimensional dynamics, actuator hysteresis, and difficult-to-model contact interactions, while conventional proprioception provides limited information…
To achieve highly dynamic jumps of legged robots, it is essential to control the rotational dynamics of the robot. In this paper, we aim to improve the jumping performance by proposing a unified model for planning highly dynamic jumps that…