Related papers: Streamlined shape of cyborg cockroach promotes tra…
Many animals, modern aircraft, and underwater vehicles use streamlined body shapes that reduce fluid dynamic drag to achieve fast and effective locomotion in air and water. Similarly, numerous small terrestrial animals move through…
Cyborg insects refer to hybrid robots that integrate living insects with miniature electronic controllers to enable robotic-like programmable control. These creatures exhibit advantages over conventional robots in adaption to complex…
By leveraging their high mobility and small size, insects have been combined with microcontrollers to build up cyborg insects for various practical applications. Unfortunately, all current cyborg insects rely on implanted electrodes to…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…
The advancement of insect-computer hybrid robots holds significant promise for navigating complex terrains and enhancing robotics applications. This study introduced an automatic assembly method for insect-computer hybrid robots, which was…
To traverse complex natural terrain, animals often transition between locomotor modes. It is well known that locomotor transitions can be induced by switching in neural control circuits or be driven by a need to minimize metabolic energetic…
It is well known that animals can use neural and sensory feedback via vision, tactile sensing, and echolocation to negotiate obstacles. Similarly, most robots use deliberate or reactive planning to avoid obstacles, which relies on prior…
Robots excel at avoiding obstacles but struggle to traverse complex 3-D terrain with cluttered large obstacles. By contrast, insects like cockroaches excel at doing so. Recent research in our lab elucidated how locomotor transitions emerge…
This study focuses on improving the ability of cyborg insects to navigate autonomously during search and rescue missions in outdoor environments. We propose an algorithm that leverages data from an IMU to calculate orientation and position…
This research proposes a novel morphing structure with shells inspired by the movement of pillbugs. Instead of the pillbug body, a loopcoupled mechanism based on slider-crank mechanisms is utilized to achieve the rolling up and spreading…
Limbless locomotors, from microscopic worms to macroscopic snakes, traverse complex, heterogeneous natural environments typically using undulatory body wave propagation. Theoretical and robophysical models typically emphasize body…
Aerial robots the size of a honeybee (~100 mg) have advantages over larger robots because of their small size, low mass and low materials cost. Previous iterations have demonstrated controlled flight but were difficult to fabricate because…
Microspine grippers are small spines commonly found on insect legs that reinforce surface interaction by engaging with asperities to increase shear force and traction. An array of such microspines, when integrated into the limbs or…
While bio-inspired and biomimetic systems draw inspiration from living materials, biohybrid systems incorporate them with synthetic devices, allowing the exploitation of both organic and artificial advantages inside a single entity. In the…
Robots are still poor at traversing cluttered large obstacles required for important applications like search and rescue. By contrast, animals are excellent at doing so, often using direct physical interaction with obstacles rather than…
Our goal in this work is to expand the theory and practice of robot locomotion by addressing critical challenges associated with the robotic biomimicry of bat aerial locomotion. Bats are known for their pronounced, fast wing articulations,…
Many organisms, including various species of spiders and caterpillars, change their shape to switch gaits and adapt to different environments. Recent technological advances, ranging from stretchable circuits to highly deformable soft…
Quadruped animal locomotion emerges from the interactions between the spinal central pattern generator (CPG), sensory feedback, and supraspinal drive signals from the brain. Computational models of CPGs have been widely used for…
Legged robots have the ability to adapt their walking posture to navigate confined spaces due to their high degrees of freedom. However, this has not been exploited in most common multilegged platforms. This paper presents a deformable…
Swarm User Interfaces allow dynamic arrangement of user environments through the use of multiple mobile robots, but their operational range is typically confined to a single plane due to constraints imposed by their two-wheel propulsion…