Related papers: Optimization-Driven Design of Monolithic Soft-Rigi…
Soft robotic grasping has rapidly spread through the academic robotics community in recent years and pushed into industrial applications. At the same time, multimaterial 3D printing has become widely available, enabling the monolithic…
For robot manipulation, both the controller and end-effector design are crucial. Soft grippers are generalizable by deforming to different geometries, but designing such a gripper and finding its grasp pose remains challenging. In this…
This work provides a complete framework for the simulation, co-optimization, and sim-to-real transfer of the design and control of soft legged robots. The compliance of soft robots provides a form of "mechanical intelligence" -- the ability…
The manual design of soft robots and their controllers is notoriously challenging, but it could be augmented---or, in some cases, entirely replaced---by automated design tools. Machine learning algorithms can automatically propose, test,…
As soft robot design matures, researchers have converged to sophisticated design paradigms to enable the development of more suitable platforms. Two such paradigms are soft-rigid hybrid robots, which utilize rigid structural materials in…
Computational design can excite the full potential of soft robotics that has the drawbacks of being highly nonlinear from material, structure, and contact. Up to date, enthusiastic research interests have been demonstrated for individual…
The rise in additive manufacturing comes with unique opportunities and challenges. Massive part customization and rapid design changes are made possible with additive manufacturing, however, manufacturing industries that desire the…
Soft robots promise inherent safety via their material compliance for seamless interactions with humans or delicate environments. Yet, their development is challenging because it requires integrating materials, geometry, actuation, and…
Recently, suction-based robotic systems with microscopic features or active suction components have been proposed to grip rough and irregular surfaces. However, sophisticated fabrication methods or complex control systems are required for…
Soft robotic grippers are essential for grasping delicate, geometrically complex objects in manufacturing, healthcare and agriculture. However, existing grippers struggle to grasp feature-rich objects with high topological variability,…
Soft-growing robots (i.e., vine robots) are a promising class of soft robots that allow for navigation and growth in tightly confined environments. However, these robots remain challenging to model and control due to the complex interplay…
While soft robot manipulators offer compelling advantages over rigid counterparts, including inherent compliance, safe human-robot interaction, and the ability to conform to complex geometries, accurate forward modeling from low-dimensional…
In 3D printing, stiff fibers (e.g., carbon fiber) can reinforce thermoplastic polymers with limited stiffness. However, existing commercial digital manufacturing software only provides a few simple fiber layout algorithms, which solely use…
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…
Soft robots achieve functionality through tight coupling among geometry, material composition, and actuation. As a result, effective design optimization requires these three aspects to be considered jointly rather than in isolation. This…
Mechanical compliance is a key design parameter for dynamic contact-rich manipulation, affecting task success and safety robustness over contact geometry variation. Design of soft robotic structures, such as compliant fingers, requires…
Research on the co-optimization of soft robotic design and control requires rapid means for real-world validation. Existing creation pipelines do not allow for the swift prototyping of soft robots to quickly test various design…
This paper presents a systematic topology optimization framework for designing a soft pneumatic gripper (SPG), explicitly considering the design-dependent nature of the actuating load. The load is modeled using Darcy's law with an added…
Soft robotics has emerged as the standard solution for grasping deformable objects, and has proven invaluable for mobile robotic exploration in extreme environments. However, despite this growth, there are no widely adopted computational…
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.,…