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This article investigates the challenge of achieving functional tool-use grasping with high-DoF anthropomorphic hands, with the aim of enabling anthropomorphic hands to perform tasks that require human-like manipulation and tool-use.…
Biological synergies have emerged as a widely adopted paradigm for dexterous hand design, enabling human-like manipulation with a small number of actuators. Nonetheless, excessive coupling tends to diminish the dexterity of hands. This…
Biomimetic and compliant robotic hands offer the potential for human-like dexterity, but controlling them is challenging due to high dimensionality, complex contact interactions, and uncertainties in state estimation. Sampling-based model…
Tendon-driven under-actuated robotic fingers provide advantages for dexterous manipulation through reduced actuator requirements and simplified mechanical design. However, achieving both high load capacity and adaptive compliance in a…
The subject of this paper is the design of a new concept of modular parallel mechanisms for three, four or five-axis machining applications. Most parallel mechanisms are designed for three- or six-axis machining applications. In the last…
Multisection continuum arms offer complementary characteristics to those of traditional rigid-bodied robots. Inspired by biological appendages, such as elephant trunks and octopus arms, these robots trade rigidity for compliance, accuracy…
Compared to traditional rigid robotics, soft robotics has attracted increasing attention due to its advantages as compliance, safety, and low cost. As an essential part of soft robotics, the soft robotic gripper also shows its superior…
Flexible endoscopy requires high skills to manipulate both the endoscope and associated instruments. In most robotic flexible endoscopic systems, the endoscope and instruments are controlled separately by two operators, which may result in…
Springs are efficient in storing and returning elastic potential energy but are unable to hold the energy they store in the absence of an external load. Lockable springs use clutches to hold elastic potential energy in the absence of an…
This paper explores the design strategies for hybrid pole- or trunk-climbing robots, focusing on methods to inform design decisions and assess metrics such as adaptability and performance. A wheeled-grasping hybrid robot with modular,…
Reinforcement learning systems have the potential to enable continuous improvement in unstructured environments, leveraging data collected autonomously. However, in practice these systems require significant amounts of instrumentation or…
We present a concept of constrained collaborative mobile agents (CCMA) system, which consists of multiple wheeled mobile agents constrained by a passive kinematic chain. This mobile robotic system is modular in nature, the passive kinematic…
Compliant mechanisms actuated by pneumatic loads are receiving increasing attention due to their direct applicability as soft robots that perform tasks using their flexible bodies. Using multiple materials to build them can further improve…
Soft robotic actuators can simplify the design of controllers when operating in contact-rich environments. Importantly, their passive compliance fundamentally alters contact mechanics by smoothing impacts and distributing forces over large…
Humans naturally exhibit bilateral symmetry in their gross manipulation skills, effortlessly mirroring simple actions between left and right hands. Bimanual robots-which also feature bilateral symmetry-should similarly exploit this property…
Shared control, which combines human expertise with autonomous assistance, is critical for effective teleoperation in complex environments. While recent advances in haptic-guided teleoperation have shown promise, they are often limited to…
Robotic manipulation of deformable, one-dimensional objects (DOOs) like ropes or cables has important potential applications in manufacturing, agriculture, and surgery. In such environments, the task may involve threading through or…
Electrostatic actuators provide a promising approach to creating soft robotic sheets, due to their flexible form factor, modular integration, and fast response speed. However, their control requires kilo-Volt signals and understanding of…
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)…
Bilateral control, a remote-control technique, is used to work at a distance. However, many existing bilateral control systems have two common problems: 1) it is difficult to create a system like a human hand, that has multiple degrees of…