Related papers: Sinkage Study in Granular Material for Space Explo…
Planetary rovers operating in extraterrestrial environments often encounter significant mobility challenges due to varying terrain features such as gradients and granularity. While recent works in multimodal wheel design have explored…
Compared to agile legged animals, wheeled and tracked vehicles often suffer large performance loss on granular surfaces like sand and gravel. Understanding the mechanics of legged locomotion on granular media can aid the development of…
Robot grasping of deformable hollow objects such as plastic bottles and cups is challenging as the grasp should resist disturbances while minimally deforming the object so as not to damage it or dislodge liquids. We propose minimal work as…
Endowing robots with tactile capabilities opens up new possibilities for their interaction with the environment, including the ability to handle fragile and/or soft objects. In this work, we equip the robot gripper with low-cost…
Future planetary exploration missions will require reaching challenging regions such as craters and steep slopes. Such regions are ubiquitous and present science-rich targets potentially containing information regarding the planet's…
Robotic manipulation of flexible objects is widely required in both industrial and service applications. Among such objects, paper-like materials exhibit distinct mechanical characteristics compared to cloth, being more sensitive to…
Legged locomotion is a highly promising but under-researched subfield within the field of soft robotics. The compliant limbs of soft-limbed robots offer numerous benefits, including the ability to regulate impacts, tolerate falls, and…
Legged robots are promising candidates for exploring challenging areas on low-gravity bodies such as the Moon, Mars, or asteroids, thanks to their advanced mobility on unstructured terrain. However, as planetary robots' power and thermal…
One of the trendsetting themes in soft robotics has been the goal of developing the ultimate universal soft robotic gripper. One that is capable of manipulating items of various shapes, sizes, thicknesses, textures, and weights. All the…
Grasping deformable objects is not well researched due to the complexity in modelling and simulating the dynamic behavior of such objects. However, with the rapid development of physics-based simulators that support soft bodies, the…
Gripping and holding of objects are key tasks for robotic manipulators. The development of universal grippers able to pick up unfamiliar objects of widely varying shape and surface properties remains, however, challenging. Most current…
In this work, we propose the use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) for rover localization on Mars. Precise pose estimation is an important task for mobile robots exploring planetary surfaces, as they operate in GPS-denied environments.…
In this paper, we present an approach to study the behavior of compliant plates in granular media and optimize the performance of a robot that utilizes this technique for mobility. From previous work and fundamental tests on thin plate…
Performing a grasp is a pivotal capability for a robotic gripper. We propose a new evaluation approach of grasping stability via constructing a model of grasping stiffness based on the theory of contact mechanics. First, the mathematical…
The exploration of asteroids and comets is important in the quest for the formation of the Solar System and it is an important step for human space travel. Moving on the surface of asteroids is challenging for future robotic explorers due…
Grasp planning and most specifically the grasp space exploration is still an open issue in robotics. This article presents an efficient procedure for exploring the grasp space of a multifingered adaptive gripper for generating reliable…
In this paper we explore state-of-the-art underactuated, compliant robot gripper designs through looking at their performance on a generic grasping task. Starting from a state of the art open gripper design, we propose design…
Soft grippers are gaining significant attention in the manipulation of elastic objects, where it is required to handle soft and unstructured objects which are vulnerable to deformations. A crucial problem is to estimate the physical…
Legged robot locomotion on sand slopes is challenging due to the complex dynamics of granular media and how the lack of solid surfaces can hinder locomotion. A promising strategy, inspired by ghost crabs and other organisms in nature, is to…
Tool-based scooping is vital in robot-assisted tasks, enabling interaction with objects of varying sizes, shapes, and material states. Recent studies have shown that flexible, reconfigurable soft robotic end-effectors can adapt their shape…