Related papers: Electrically-driven phase transition actuators to …
To date, insect scale robots capable of controlled flight have used flapping wings for generating lift, but this requires a complex and failure-prone mechanism. A simpler alternative is electrohydrodynamic (EHD) thrust, which requires no…
Vehicle power-trains use a variable transmission (multiple gear-ratios) to minimize motor size and maximize efficiency while meeting a wide-range of operating points. Robots could similarly benefit from variable transmission to save weight…
The legged robots with variable stiffness actuators (VSAs) can achieve energy-efficient and versatile locomotion. However, equipping legged robots with VSAs in real-world application is usually restricted by (i) the redundant mechanical…
All-around, real-time navigation and sensing across the water environments by miniature soft robotics are promising, for their merits of small size, high agility and good compliance to the unstructured surroundings. In this paper, we…
Rigid-bodied robots often lack compliance needed to adapt to unstructured environments, while fully soft robots, though highly adaptable, struggle with scalability and load capacity. In nature, musculoskeletal systems balance strength and…
Inspired by the vertebrate branch of the animal kingdom, articulated soft robots are robotic systems embedding elastic elements into a classic rigid (skeleton-like) structure. Leveraging on their bodies elasticity, soft robots promise to…
Soft robots utilizing inflatable dielectric membranes can realize intricate functionalities through the application of non-mechanical fields. However, given the current limitations in simulations, including low computational efficiency and…
In solids, frequent electron-electron collisions can induce collective, fluid-like electron transport. While this regime offers a powerful framework for exploring many-body phenomena, there is still a lack in functional electronic device…
In this project, we focus on human-robot interaction in caregiving scenarios like bathing, where physical contact is inevitable and necessary for proper task execution because force must be applied to the skin. Using finite element…
Soft robotics leverages deformable materials to develop robots capable of navigating unstructured and dynamic environments. Silicone Voxel-Based Soft Robots (Silibots) are a type of pneumatically actuated soft robots that rely on the…
Underwater robotics has advanced significantly over recent decades. however, the development of miniaturized underwater robots remains limited by low energy densities of traditional power sources. Nature offers compelling…
Soft robots have found extensive applications in the medical field, particularly in rehabilitation exercises, assisted grasping, and artificial organs. Despite significant advancements in simulating various components of the digestive…
Soft grippers, with their inherent compliance and adaptability, show advantages for delicate and versatile manipulation tasks in robotics. This paper presents a novel approach to underactuated control of multiple soft actuators, explicitly…
Micro-organisms propel themselves in viscous environments by the periodic, nonreciprocal beating of slender appendages known as flagella. Active materials have been widely exploited to mimic this form of locomotion. However, the realization…
Practical use of robotic manipulators made from soft materials requires generating and executing complex motions. We present the first approach for generating trajectories of a thermally-actuated soft robotic manipulator. Based on…
Controlling interfaces of phase separating fluid mixtures is key to creating diverse functional soft materials. Traditionally, this is accomplished with surface-modifying chemical agents. Using experiment and theory, we study how mechanical…
Most robotic hands and grippers rely on actuators with large gearboxes and force sensors for controlling gripping force. However, this might not be ideal for tasks which require the robot to interact with an unstructured and/or unknown…
The simulation-to-reality (sim-to-real) transfer of large-scale hydraulic robots presents a significant challenge in robotics because of the inherent slow control response and complex fluid dynamics. The complex dynamics result from the…
Algorithms that use derivatives of governing equations have accelerated rigid robot simulations and improved their accuracy, enabling the modeling of complex, real-world capabilities. However, extending these methods to soft and hybrid…
Many soft robots struggle to produce dynamic motions with fast, large displacements. We develop a parallel 6 degree-of-freedom (DoF) Stewart-Gough mechanism using Handed Shearing Auxetic (HSA) actuators. By using soft actuators, we are able…