Related papers: Improving Grip Stability Using Passive Compliant M…
Legged locomotion is a highly promising but under-researched subfield within the field of soft robotics. The compliant limbs of soft-limbed robots offer numerous benefits, including the ability to regulate impacts, tolerate falls, and…
Many organisms leverage an interplay between shape and activity to generate motion and adapt to their environment. Embedding such feedback into synthetic microrobots could eliminate the need for sensors, software, and actuators, yet current…
Mudskippers are unique amphibious fish capable of locomotion in diverse environments, including terrestrial surfaces, aquatic habitats, and highly viscous substrates such as mud. This versatile locomotion is largely enabled by their…
In lunar and planetary exploration, legged robots have attracted significant attention as an alternative to conventional wheeled robots, which struggle to traverse rough and uneven terrain. To enable locomotion over highly irregular and…
Design of robots at the small scale is a trial-and-error based process, which is costly and time-consuming. There are no good dynamic simulation tools to predict the motion or performance of a microrobot as it moves against a substrate. At…
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…
We propose a mechanically simple and cheap design for a series elastic actuator with controllable stiffness. Such characteristics are necessary for animals for running, jumping, throwing, and manipulation, yet in robots, variable stiffness…
Living organisms intertwine soft (e.g., muscle) and hard (e.g., bones) materials, giving them an intrinsic flexibility and resiliency often lacking in conventional rigid robots. The emerging field of soft robotics seeks to harness these…
Customized grippers have broad applications in industrial assembly lines. Compared with general parallel grippers, the customized grippers have specifically designed fingers to increase the contact area with the workpieces and improve the…
Robot feet are crucial for maintaining dynamic stability and propelling the body during walking, especially on uneven terrains. Traditionally, robot feet were mostly designed as flat and stiff pieces of metal, which meets its limitations…
Robotic manipulation of flexible objects is widely required in both industrial and service applications. Among such objects, paper-like materials exhibit distinct mechanical characteristics compared to cloth, being more sensitive to…
Soft robots have the ability to adapt to their environment, which makes them suitable for use in disaster areas and agricultural fields, where their mobility is constrained by complex terrain. One of the main challenges in developing soft…
Contrary to the stunning feats observed in birds of prey, aerial manipulation and grasping with flying robots still lack versatility and agility. Conventional approaches using rigid manipulators require precise positioning and are subject…
Legged robots have the potential to leverage obstacles to climb steep sand slopes. However, efficiently repositioning these obstacles to desired locations is challenging. Here we present DiffusiveGRAIN, a learning-based method that enables…
Grasping has long been considered an important and practical task in robotic manipulation. Yet achieving robust and efficient grasps of diverse objects is challenging, since it involves gripper design, perception, control and learning, etc.…
Pipelines, vital for fluid transport, pose an important yet challenging inspection task, particularly in small, flexible biological systems, that robots have yet to master. In this study, we explored the development of an innovative robot…
Mobility on asteroids by multi-limbed climbing robots is expected to achieve our exploration goals in such challenging environments. We propose a mobility strategy to improve the locomotion safety of climbing robots in such harsh…
To reproduce natural standing-up motion, recent studies have emphasized the importance of coordination between the assisting robot and the human. However, many non-wearable assistive devices have struggled to replicate natural motion…
This study explores the dynamics of asymmetrical bounding gaits in quadrupedal robots, focusing on the integration of torso pitching and hip motion to enhance speed and stability. Traditional control strategies often enforce a fixed…
Rigid multi-link robotic arms face a tradeoff between their overall reach distance (the workspace), and how compactly they can be collapsed (the storage volume). Increasing the workspace of a robot arm requires longer links, which adds…