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The increasing need for sharing workspace and interactive physical tasks between robots and humans has raised concerns regarding safety of such operations. In this regard, controllable clutches have shown great potential for addressing…
Soft robotic actuators are safe and adaptable devices with inherent compliance, which makes them attractive for manipulating delicate and complex objects. Researchers have integrated stiff materials into soft actuators to increase their…
Soft adhesive pads are needed for many robotics applications, and one approach is based on electroadhesion. Here we present a general analytic model and numerical results for electroadhesion for soft solids with arbitrary time-dependent…
Stiffness variation and real-time position feedback are critical for any robotic system but most importantly for active and wearable devices to interact with the user and environment. Currently, for compact sizes, there is a lack of…
Intrinsically elastic robots surpass their rigid counterparts in a range of different characteristics. By temporarily storing potential energy and subsequently converting it to kinetic energy, elastic robots are capable of highly dynamic…
Position control devices enable precise selection, but significant clutching degrades performance. Clutching can be reduced with high control-display gain or pointer acceleration, but there are human and device limits. Elastic rate control…
As interest in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) increases, the demand for kinesthetic haptic feedback devices is rapidly rising. Motor based haptic interfaces are heavy and bulky, leading to discomfort for the user. To…
Electroadhesion (EA) provides electrically switchable adhesion and is a promising mechanism for perching micro aerial robots on smooth surfaces. However, practical implementations of soft and stretchable EA pads for aerial perching remain…
In this paper, a new discrete-time approach to model the clutches engagement/disengagement in a two-speed powershift is proposed. The core idea is the development of a model for the computation of the exact torque needed to achieve the…
The design of physical compliance -- its location, degree, and structure -- affects robot performance and robustness in contact-rich tasks. While compliance is often used in the robot's joints, flange, or end-effector, this paper proposes…
Many biological systems can form strong adhesion to various materials with complex shapes. The adhesion is further switchable between strongly adhering and completely non-adhering in a simple and fast manner. By contrast, no engineering…
Soft electronics have recently gathered considerable interest thanks to their bio-mechanical compatibility. An important feature of such deformable conductors is their electrical response to strain. While development of stretchable…
A quantitative understanding of how cells interact with their extracellular matrix via molecular bonds is fundamental for many important processes in cell biology and engineering. In these interactions, the deformability of cells and matrix…
High-frequency micrometrical vibrations have been shown to greatly influence the adhesive performance of soft interfaces, however a detailed comparison between theoretical predictions and experimental results is still missing. Here, the…
In many robotic systems, the holding state consumes power, limits operating time, and increases operating costs. Electrostatic clutches have the potential to improve robotic performance by generating holding torques with low power…
Soft optical tactile sensors enable robots to manipulate deformable objects by capturing important features such as high-resolution contact geometry and estimations of object compliance. This work presents a variable stiffness soft tactile…
Insects, pick-and-place manufacturing, engineered adhesives, and soft robots employ soft materials to stick to surfaces even in the presence of roughness. Experiments show that the force required for making contact is lower than for…
Softer means stickier for solid adhesives, because material compliance facilitates close contact between non-conformal surfaces. Recent discoveries have revealed that soft materials can exhibit a rich array of new physics arising from…
We present our recent study on rough adhesive contacts of viscoelastic materials in steady-state sliding, focusing on the interplay between adhesion and viscoelasticity by means of a novel energy approach. We investigate tribological…
Soft modular robots enable more flexibility and safer interaction with the changing environment than traditional robots. However, it has remained challenging to create deformable connectors that can be integrated into soft machines. In this…