Related papers: Design, Characterization, and Validation of a Vari…
Powered ankle prostheses effectively assist people with lower limb amputation to perform daily activities. High performance prostheses with adjustable compliance and capability to predict and implement amputee's intent are crucial for them…
Soft robots are notoriously hard to control. This is partly due to the scarcity of models able to capture their complex continuum mechanics, resulting in a lack of control methodologies that take full advantage of body compliance. Currently…
We propose a novel tri-fingered soft robotic gripper with decoupled stiffness and shape control capability for performing adaptive grasping with minimum system complexity. The proposed soft fingers adaptively conform to object shapes…
The issues of research required in the field of bio medical engineering and externally-powered prostheses are attracting attention of regulatory bodies and the common people in various parts of the globe. Today, 90 percent of prostheses…
This paper proposes a new variable stiffness soft gripper that enables high-performance grasping tasks in industrial applications. The design of the proposed monolithic soft gripper includes a middle bellow and two side bellows (i.e.,…
The hand is one of the most complex and important parts of the human body. The dexterity provided by its multiple degrees of freedom enables us to perform many of the tasks of daily living which involve grasping and manipulating objects of…
Soft sleeve actuators (SSAs) have recently been developed as a pneumatic actuation approach for wearable and assistive robotic systems. By integrating the actuation structure into a sleeve-like geometry, these actuators can reduce reliance…
Control of soft robotic manipulators remains a challenge for designs with advanced capabilities and novel actuation. Two significant limitations are multi-axis, three-dimensional motion of soft bodies alongside actuator dynamics and…
Stability and reliable operation under a spectrum of environmental conditions is still an open challenge for soft and continuum style manipulators. The inability to carry sufficient load and effectively reject external disturbances are two…
Based on the idea of variable stiffness mechanisms, a variety of such mechanisms is shown in this work. Specifically, 2-DOF parallel kinematic machines equipped with redundant actuators and non-linear springs in the actuated joints are…
Compliance is a strong requirement for human-robot interactions. Soft-robots provide an opportunity to cover the lack of compliance in conventional actuation mechanisms, however, the control of them is very challenging given their intrinsic…
Achieving human-like dexterity in robotic grippers remains an open challenge, particularly in ensuring robust manipulation in uncertain environments. Soft robotic hands try to address this by leveraging passive compliance, a characteristic…
Passive elastic elements can contribute to stability, energetic efficiency, and impact absorption in both biological and robotic systems. They also add dynamical complexity which makes them more challenging to model and control. The impact…
The electromyography (EMG) signal is the electrical manifestation of a neuromuscular activation that provides access to physiological processes which cause the muscle to generate force and produce movement. Non invasive prostheses use such…
One of the most elusive goals in myographic prosthesis control is the ability to reliably decode continuous positions simultaneously across multiple degrees-of-freedom. Goal: To demonstrate dexterous, natural, biomimetic finger and wrist…
In assistive robots, compliant actuator is a key component in establishing safe and satisfactory physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). The performance of compliant actuators largely depends on the stiffness of the elastic element.…
Manipulability analysis is a methodology employed to assess the capacity of an articulated system, at a specific configuration, to produce motion or exert force in diverse directions. The conventional method entails generating a virtual…
Soft robots have immense potential given their inherent safety and adaptability, but challenges in soft actuator forces and design constraints have limited scaling up soft robots to larger sizes. Electrothermal shape memory alloy (SMA)…
We design, build, and thoroughly test a new type of actuator dubbed viscoelastic liquid cooled actuator (VLCA) for robotic applications. VLCAs excel in the following five critical axes of performance: energy efficiency, torque density,…
The paper presents advancement of the matrix structural analysis technique (MSA) for stiffness modeling of robotic manipulators. In contrast to the classical MSA, it can be applied to both parallel and serial manipulators composed of…