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Many organisms, including various species of spiders and caterpillars, change their shape to switch gaits and adapt to different environments. Recent technological advances, ranging from stretchable circuits to highly deformable soft…
Soft pneumatic legged robots show promise in their ability to traverse a range of different types of terrain, including natural unstructured terrain met in applications like precision agriculture. They can adapt their body morphology to the…
Inflated continuum robots are promising for a variety of navigation tasks, but controlling their motion with a small number of actuators is challenging. These inflated beam robots tend to buckle under compressive loads, producing extremely…
Soft robots are intrinsically capable of adapting to different environments by changing their shape in response to interaction forces with the environment. However, sensing and feedback are still required for higher level decisions and…
Many soft-body organisms found in nature flourish underwater. Similarly, soft robots are potentially well-suited for underwater environments partly because the problematic effects of gravity, friction, and harmonic oscillations are less…
Soft robots have drawn significant attention recently for their ability to achieve rich shapes when interacting with complex environments. However, their elasticity and flexibility compared to rigid robots also pose significant challenges…
Microspine grippers are small spines commonly found on insect legs that reinforce surface interaction by engaging with asperities to increase shear force and traction. An array of such microspines, when integrated into the limbs or…
Synthetic active collectives, composed of many nonliving individuals capable of cooperative changes in group shape and dynamics, hold promise for practical applications and for the elucidation of guiding principles of natural collectives.…
Physical joint limits are common in legged robots and can restrict workspace, constrain gait design, and increase the risk of hardware damage. This paper introduces MiNI-Q^2, a miniature, wire-free quadruped robot with independently…
Magnetic-responsive composites that consist of soft matrix embedded with hard-magnetic particles have recently been demonstrated as robust soft active materials for fast-transforming actuation. However, the deformation of the functional…
This paper presents design principles for comfort-centered wearable robots and their application in a lightweight and backdrivable knee exoskeleton. The mitigation of discomfort is treated as mechanical design and control issues and three…
Soft robots are compliant but often cannot support loads or hold their shape, while rigid robots provide structural strength but are less adaptable. Existing variable-stiffness systems usually operate at the scale of whole segments or…
Mobile robots are used in various fields, from deliveries to search and rescue applications. Different types of sensors are mounted on the robot to provide accurate navigation and, thus, allow successful completion of its task. In…
Jumping is an efficient locomotion strategy to traverse cluttered, uneven, or unstable environments in nature, yet replicating continuous, autonomous leaping in soft robots remains challenging due to limited energy storage and reliance on…
Intelligent control of soft robots is challenging due to the nonlinear and difficult-to-model dynamics. One promising model-free approach for soft robot control is reinforcement learning (RL). However, model-free RL methods tend to be…
This paper presents the development of an adaptive intelligent spider robot. With the incorporation of sensors, the four-legged spider robot is able to monitor the environment wirelessly. A new auto-station adaptation National Instrument…
Tip-extending soft robots that "grow" via pneumatic eversion of their body material have demonstrated applications in exploration of cluttered environments. During growth, the motion and force of the robot tip can be controlled in three…
Snapping instabilities in soft structures offer a powerful pathway to achieve rapid and energy-efficient actuation. In this study, an eccentric dome-shaped snapping actuator is developed to generate controllable asymmetric motion through…
Sidewinding, a locomotion strategy characterized by the coordination of lateral and vertical body undulations, is frequently observed in rattlesnakes and has been successfully reconstructed by limbless robotic systems for effective movement…
This paper presents the design and dynamic modelling of a soft pneumatic actuator that can be used to mimic snake or worm-like locomotion. The bond graph technique is used to derive the dynamics of the actuator. To validate the accuracy of…