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Rigid robots can be precise in repetitive tasks, but struggle in unstructured environments. Nature's versatility in such environments inspires researchers to develop biomimetic robots that incorporate compliant and contracting artificial…
Soft electrothermal actuators are of great interest in diverse application domains for their simplicity, compliance, and ease of control. However, the very nature of thermally induced mechanical actuation sets inherent operation…
Miniature locomotion robots with the ability to navigate confined environments show great promise for a wide range of tasks, including search and rescue operations. Soft miniature locomotion robots, as a burgeoning field, have attracted…
Macroscale robotic systems have demonstrated great capabilities of high speed, precise, and agile functions. However, the ability of soft robots to perform complex tasks, especially in centimeter and millimeter scale, remains limited due to…
Robotic legs have bimodal operations: swing phases when the leg needs to move quickly in the air (high-speed, low-force) and stance phases when the leg bears the weight of the system (low-speed, high-force). Sizing a traditional…
Bio-inspired soft robots have already shown the ability to handle uncertainty and adapt to unstructured environments. However, their availability is partially restricted by time-consuming, costly and highly supervised design-fabrication…
Fluid-based soft actuators are an attractive option for lightweight and human-safe robots. These actuators, combined with fluid pressure force feedback, are in principle a form of series-elastic actuation (SEA), in which nearly all…
Wearable robots are limited by their actuators performances because they must bear the weight of their own power system and energy source. This paper explores the idea of leveraging hybrid modes to meet multiple operating points with a…
The controlled actuation of hydraulic and pneumatic actuators has unveiled fresh and thrilling opportunities for designing mobile robots with adaptable structures. Previously reported rolling robots, which were powered by fluidic systems,…
This paper presents design, fabrication and control of a compliant 2D manipulator, a so called soft actuator. Our focus is on fiber-reinforced elastomer actuators driven by a constant pressure hydraulic supply and modulated on/off valves.…
Wearable and legged robot designers face multiple challenges when choosing actuation. Traditional fully actuated designs using electric motors are multifunctional but oversized and inefficient for bearing conservative loads and for being…
We describe a fluidic actuator design that replaces the sealed chamber of a hydraulic cylinder using a soft actuator to provide compliant linear compression with a large force ($\geq$100 N) at a low operation pressure ($\leq$50 kPa) for a…
Electromechanical actuators exploit the Lorentz force law to convert electrical energy into rotational or linear mechanical energy. In these electromagnetically induced motions, the electrical current flows through wires that are rigid and…
The ignition of flammable liquids and gases in offshore oil and gas environments is a major risk and can cause loss of life, serious injury, and significant damage to infrastructure. Power supplies that are used to provide regulated…
Soft underwater robots typically explore bioinspired designs at the expense of power efficiency when compared to traditional underwater robots, which limits their practical use in real-world applications. We leverage a fluidic closed-loop…
Pneumatic actuation benefits soft robotics by facilitating compliance, enabling large volume change, and concentrating actuator weight away from the end-effector. However, portability is compromised when pneumatic actuators are tethered to…
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…
Robotic systems driven by conventional motors often suffer from challenges such as large mass, complex control algorithms, and the need for additional braking mechanisms, which limit their applications in lightweight and compact robotic…
Soft robotics is an attractive and rapidly emerging field, in which actuation is coupled with the elastic response of the robot's structure to achieve complex deformation patterns. A crucial challenge is the need for multiple control…
With soft robotics being increasingly employed in settings demanding high and controlled contact forces, recent research has demonstrated the use of soft robots to estimate or intrinsically sense forces without requiring external sensing…