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Designing a robot or structure that can fold itself into a target shape is a process that involves challenges originated from multiple sources. For example, the designer of rigid self-folding robots must consider foldability from geometric…
Conventional soft pneumatic actuators, typically based on hollow elastomeric chambers, often suffer from small structural support and require costly geometry-specific redesigns for multimodal functionality. Porous materials such as foam,…
This study proposes and examines a novel approach to generate peristaltic-like locomotion in a segmented origami robot. Specifically, we demonstrate the use of multi-stability embedded in origami skeleton to eliminate the need for multiple…
Designing metamaterials that carry out advanced computations poses a significant challenge. A powerful design strategy splits the problem into two steps: First, encoding the desired functionality in a discrete or tight-binding model, and…
New additive manufacturing methods are needed to realize more complex soft robots. One example is soft fluidic robotics, which exploits fluidic power and stiffness gradients. Porous structures are an interesting type for this approach, as…
While DNA origami is a powerful bottom-up fabrication technique, the physical and chemical stability of DNA nanostructures is generally limited to aqueous buffer conditions. Wet chemical silicification can stabilise these structures but…
Limbless creatures can crawl on flat surfaces by deforming their bodies and interacting with asperities on the ground, offering a biological blueprint for designing efficient limbless robots. Inspired by this natural locomotion, we present…
This paper demonstrates the computational design of soft elastomeric pneumatic actuators using nonlinear topology optimization. An existing density- and porohyperelasticity-based topology optimization framework was extended from 2D to 3D…
A key challenge in robotics is to create efficient methods for grasping objects with diverse shapes, sizes, poses, and properties. Grasping with hand-like end effectors often requires careful selection of hand orientation and finger…
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…
Soft robots utilizing inflatable dielectric membranes can realize intricate functionalities through the application of non-mechanical fields. However, given the current limitations in simulations, including low computational efficiency and…
The geometric, aesthetic, and mathematical elegance of origami is being recognized as a powerful pathway to self-assembly of micro and nano-scale machines with programmable mechanical properties. The typical approach to designing the…
We introduce PuppetAI, a modular soft robot interaction platform. This platform offers a scalable cable-driven actuation system and a customizable, puppet-inspired robot gesture framework, supporting a multitude of interaction gesture robot…
Shape-morphing metamaterials enable adaptive structures capable of complex functional deformations, with applications ranging from reconfigurable structures and soft robotics to medical devices. However, their design remains challenging due…
Metamaterials are a promising platform for a range of applications, from shock absorption to mechanical computing. These functionalities typically rely on floppy modes or mechanically frustrated loops, both of which are difficult to design.…
Mechanical meta-materials are solids whose geometric structure results in exotic nonlinear behaviors that are not typically achievable via homogeneous materials. We show how to drastically expand the design space of a class of mechanical…
Within a decade of fruitful developments, metamaterials became a prominent area of research, bridging theoretical and applied electrodynamics, electrical engineering and material science. Being man-made structures, metamaterials offer a…
Soft pneumatic actuators (SPA) made from elastomeric materials can provide large strain and large force. The behavior of locally strain-restricted hyperelastic materials under inflation has been investigated thoroughly for shape…
Thick origami structures are considered here as assemblies of polygonal panels hinged to each other along their edges according to a corresponding origami crease pattern. The determination of the internal actions caused by external loads in…
Understanding and synthesizing realistic 3D hand-object interactions (HOI) is critical for applications ranging from immersive AR/VR to dexterous robotics. Existing methods struggle with generalization, performing well on closed-set objects…