Related papers: Soft Gripping System for Space Exploration Legged …
Limbless creatures can crawl on flat surfaces by deforming their bodies and interacting with asperities on the ground, offering a biological blueprint for designing efficient limbless robots. Inspired by this natural locomotion, we present…
Soft mobile robots have emerged as a promising area of research with potential applications in various disciplines including but not limited to search-and-rescue, service, surveillance, explorations, and manufacturing. In this article, we…
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…
This paper introduces a pair of low-cost, light-weight and compliant force-sensing gripping pads used for manipulating box-like objects with smaller-sized humanoid robots. These pads measure normal gripping forces and center of pressure…
Flippers are essential components of tracked robot locomotion systems for unstructured terrain, especially within a rescue scenario. Achieving full and semi-autonomy for such rescue robots is the goal of many research efforts. In this work,…
This paper introduces the TacFR-Gripper, a reconfigurable Fin Ray-based soft and compliant robotic gripper equipped with tactile skin, which can be used for dexterous in-hand manipulation tasks. This gripper can adaptively grasp objects of…
This paper presents a deep learning framework designed to enhance the grasping capabilities of quadrupeds equipped with arms, with a focus on improving precision and adaptability. Our approach centers on a sim-to-real methodology that…
Exploring planetary bodies with lower gravity, such as the moon and Mars, allows legged robots to utilize jumping as an efficient form of locomotion thus giving them a valuable advantage over traditional rovers for exploration. Motivated by…
Celestial bodies such as the Moon and Mars are mainly covered by loose, granular soil, a notoriously challenging terrain to traverse with (wheeled) robotic systems. Here, we present experimental work on traversing steep, granular slopes…
The dynamical properties of tensegrity robots give them appealing ruggedness and adaptability, but present major challenges with respect to locomotion control. Due to high-dimensionality and complex contact responses, data-driven approaches…
Agricultural robotics and automation are facing some challenges rooted in the high variability 9 of products, task complexity, crop quality requirement, and dense vegetation. Such a set of 10 challenges demands a more versatile and safe…
Traditional robots have rigid links and structures that limit their ability to interact with the dynamics of their immediate environment. For example, conventional robot manipulators with rigid links can only manipulate objects using…
Robot mobility is critical for mission success, especially in soft or deformable terrains, where the complex wheel-soil interaction mechanics often leads to excessive wheel slip and sinkage, causing the eventual mission failure. To improve…
The application of GNC devices on small robots is a game-changer that enables these robots to be mobile on low-gravity planetary surfaces and small bodies. Use of reaction wheels enables these robots to roll, hop, summersault and rest on…
Grasping has long been considered an important and practical task in robotic manipulation. Yet achieving robust and efficient grasps of diverse objects is challenging, since it involves gripper design, perception, control and learning, etc.…
Biped robots have plenty of benefits over wheeled, quadruped, or hexapod robots due to their ability to behave like human beings in tough and non-flat environments. Deformable terrain is another challenge for biped robots as it has to deal…
Robotic exploration of underground environments is a particularly challenging problem due to communication, endurance, and traversability constraints which necessitate high degrees of autonomy and agility. These challenges are further…
Soft robots have the ability to adapt to their environment, which makes them suitable for use in disaster areas and agricultural fields, where their mobility is constrained by complex terrain. One of the main challenges in developing soft…
Robots have been critical instruments to space exploration by providing access to environments beyond human limitations. Jumping robot concepts are attractive solutions to negotiate complex terrain. However, among the engineering challenges…
Soft robotics is an emerging technology in which engineers create flexible devices for use in a variety of applications. In order to advance the wide adoption of soft robots, ensuring their trustworthiness is essential; if soft robots are…