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Soft robots enable safe, adaptive interaction with complex environments but remain difficult to sense and control due to their highly deformable structures. Architected soft materials such as helicoid lattices offer tunable stiffness and…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-02 Annan Zhang , Hanna Matusik , Miguel Flores-Acton , Emily R. Sologuren , Joshua Jacob , Daniela Rus

Soft robotics is advancing the use of flexible materials for adaptable robotic systems. Membrane-actuated soft robots address the limitations of traditional soft robots by using pressurized, extensible membranes to achieve stable, large…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-02-17 Mirroyal Ismayilov , Jeref Merlin , Christos Bergeles , Lukas Lindenroth

This paper presents the application of a learning control approach for the realization of a fast and reliable pick-and-place application with a spherical soft robotic arm. The arm is characterized by a lightweight design and exhibits…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-03-09 Jasan Zughaibi , Matthias Hofer , Raffaello D'Andrea

In this paper, a reinforced soft robot prototype with a custom-designed actuator-space string encoder are created to investigate dynamic soft robotic trajectory tracking. The soft robot prototype embedded with the proposed adaptive…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-09-26 Milad Azizkhani , Anthony L. Gunderman , Isuru S. Godage , Yue Chen

The technological transition from soft machines to soft robots necessarily passes through the integration of soft electronics and sensors. This allows for the establishment of feedback control systems while preserving the softness of the…

Integrating Brain-Machine Interfaces into non-clinical applications like robot motion control remains difficult - despite remarkable advancements in clinical settings. Specifically, EEG-based motor imagery systems are still error-prone,…

Rigid-bodied robots often lack compliance needed to adapt to unstructured environments, while fully soft robots, though highly adaptable, struggle with scalability and load capacity. In nature, musculoskeletal systems balance strength and…

Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science · Computer Science 2026-05-29 Hiroki Kobayashi , Yuki Takaha , Changyoung Yuhn , Yuki Sato , Sunao Tomita , Atsushi Kawamoto , Tsuyoshi Nomura

Being aware of our body has great importance in our everyday life. This is the reason why we know how to move in a dark room or to grasp a complex object. These skills are important for robots as well, however, robotic bodily awareness is…

Robotics · Computer Science 2017-11-10 Gabor Soter , Andrew Conn , Helmut Hauser , Jonathan Rossiter

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…

Robotics · Computer Science 2018-02-21 John Rieffel , Jean-Baptiste Mouret

In this paper, we study integrated estimation and control of soft robots. A significant challenge in deploying closed loop controllers is reliable proprioception via integrated sensing in soft robots. Despite the considerable advances…

Robotics · Computer Science 2020-11-18 Lasitha Weerakoon , Zepeng Ye , Rahul Subramonian Bama , Elisabeth Smela , Miao Yu , Nikhil Chopra

Robotic manipulation has made significant advancements, with systems demonstrating high precision and repeatability. However, this remarkable precision often fails to translate into efficient manipulation of thin deformable objects. Current…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-07-09 Chao Zhao , Chunli Jiang , Lifan Luo , Shuai Yuan , Qifeng Chen , Hongyu Yu

Estimating a soft robot's pose and applied forces, also called proprioception, is crucial for safe interaction of the robot with its environment. However, most solutions for soft robot proprioception use dedicated sensors, particularly for…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-09-26 Ran Jing , Meredith L. Anderson , Juan C. Pacheco Garcia , Andrew P. Sabelhaus

To achieve real-world functionality, robots must have the ability to carry out decision-making computations. However, soft robots stretch and therefore need a solution other than rigid computers. Examples of embedding computing capacity…

This paper presents a novel, modular, cable-driven soft robotic arm featuring multi-segment reconfigurability. The proposed architecture enables a stackable system with independent segment control, allowing scalable adaptation to diverse…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-05 Moeen Ul Islam , Cheng Ouyang , Xinda Qi , Azlan Zahid , Xiaobo Tan , Dong Chen

With soft robotics being increasingly employed in settings demanding high and controlled contact forces, recent research has demonstrated the use of soft robots to estimate or intrinsically sense forces without requiring external sensing…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-11-22 Lukas Lindenroth , Danail Stoyanov , Kawal Rhode , Hongbin Liu

Soft bodies made from flexible and deformable materials are popular in many robotics applications, but their proprioceptive sensing has been a long-standing challenge. In other words, there has hardly been a method to measure and model the…

Robotics · Computer Science 2019-12-09 Ruoyu Wang , Shiheng Wang , Songyu Du , Erdong Xiao , Wenzhen Yuan , Chen Feng

Untethered soft robots that locomote using electrothermally-responsive materials like shape memory alloy (SMA) face challenging design constraints for sensing actuator states. At the same time, modeling of actuator behaviors faces steep…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-08-03 Andrew P. Sabelhaus , Rohan K. Mehta , Anthony T. Wertz , Carmel Majidi

Operating complex real-world systems, such as soft robots, can benefit from precise predictive control schemes that require accurate state and model knowledge. This knowledge is typically not available in practical settings and must be…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-05-18 Jan-Hendrik Ewering , Max Bartholdt , Simon F. G. Ehlers , Niklas Wahlström , Thomas B. Schön , Thomas Seel

For assembly tasks, it is essential to firmly fix target parts and to accurately estimate their poses. Several rigid jigs for individual parts are frequently used in assembly factories to achieve precise and time-efficient product assembly.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-09-17 Tatsuya Sakuma , Takuya Kiyokawa , Jun Takamatsu , Takahiro Wada , Tsukasa Ogasawara

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…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-10-28 Zach J. Patterson , Andrew P. Sabelhaus , Carmel Majidi