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Adapting upper-limb impedance (i.e., stiffness, damping, inertia) is essential for humans interacting with dynamic environments for executing grasping or manipulation tasks. On the other hand, control methods designed for state-of-the-art…
Estimating a soft robot's pose and applied forces, also called proprioception, is crucial for safe interaction of the robot with its environment. However, most solutions for soft robot proprioception use dedicated sensors, particularly for…
The integration of imitation and reinforcement learning has enabled remarkable advances in humanoid whole-body control, facilitating diverse human-like behaviors. However, research on environment-dependent motions remains limited. Existing…
Evolutionary algorithms offer great promise for the automatic design of robot bodies, tailoring them to specific environments or tasks. Most research is done on simplified models or virtual robots in physics simulators, which do not capture…
The tendon-driven musculoskeletal humanoid has many benefits that human beings have, but the modeling of its complex muscle and bone structures is difficult and conventional model-based controls cannot realize intended movements. Therefore,…
Humans are able to outperform robots in terms of robustness, versatility, and learning of new tasks in a wide variety of movements. We hypothesize that highly nonlinear muscle dynamics play a large role in providing inherent stability,…
We introduce a new isometric strain model for the study of the dynamics of cloth garments in a moderate stress environment, such as robotic manipulation in the neighborhood of humans. This model treats textiles as surfaces which are…
Task-driven design of soft robots requires models that are physically accurate and computationally efficient, while remaining transferable across actuator designs and task scenarios. However, existing modeling approaches typically face a…
Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) enable compliant actuation for soft wearable, assistive, and interactive robots. When arranged antagonistically, PAMs can provide variable impedance through co-contraction but exhibit coupled, nonlinear,…
Soft robotics is attractive for wearable applications that require conformal interactions with the human body. Soft wearable robotic garments hold promise for supplying dynamic compression or massage therapies, such as are applied for…
Common disabilities like stroke and spinal cord injuries may cause loss of motor function in hands. They can be treated with robot assisted rehabilitation techniques, like continuously opening and closing the hand with help of a robot, in a…
Supernumerary Robotic Limbs (SRLs) can enhance human capability within close proximity. However, as a wearable device, the generated moment from its operation acts on the human body as an external torque. When the moments increase, more…
We explore the locomotion of soft robots in granular medium (GM) resulting from the elastic deformation of slender rods. A low-cost, rapidly fabricable robot inspired by the physiological structure of bacteria is presented. It consists of a…
Arbitrary Pattern Formation is a widely studied problem in autonomous robot systems. The problem asks to design a distributed algorithm that moves a team of autonomous, anonymous and identical mobile robots to form any arbitrary pattern…
Soft robots have been increasingly utilized as sophisticated tools in physical rehabilitation, particularly for assisting patients with neuromotor impairments. However, many soft robotics for rehabilitation applications are characterized by…
The programming of robotic assembly tasks is a key component in manufacturing and automation. Force-sensitive assembly, however, often requires reactive strategies to handle slight changes in positioning and unforeseen part jamming.…
This paper presents a dynamic constraint formulation to provide protective virtual fixtures of 3D anatomical structures from polygon mesh representations. The proposed approach can anisotropically limit the tool motion of surgical robots…
Robotic automation is a key driver for the advancement of technology. The skills of human workers, however, are difficult to program and seem currently unmatched by technical systems. In this work we present a data-driven approach to…
Bio-hybrid systems---close couplings of natural organisms with technology---are high potential and still underexplored. In existing work, robots have mostly influenced group behaviors of animals. We explore the possibilities of mixing…
Robotic surfaces traditionally use materials with a positive Poisson's ratio to push and pull on a manipulation interface. Auxetic materials with a negative Poisson's ratio may expand in multiple directions when stretched and enable…