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With the explosive growth of rigid-body simulators, policy learning in simulation has become the de facto standard for most rigid morphologies. In contrast, soft robotic simulation frameworks remain scarce and are seldom adopted by the soft…
Microswimmers, and among them aspirant microrobots, generally have to cope with flows where viscous forces are dominant, characterized by a low Reynolds number ($Re$). This implies constraints on the possible sequences of body motion, which…
Capsule robots are promising tools for minimally invasive diagnostics and therapy, with applications from gastrointestinal endoscopy to targeted drug delivery and biopsy sampling. Conventional magnetic capsule robots embed bulky permanent…
Biomimetic entirely soft robots with animal-like behavior and integrated artificial nervous systems will open up totally new perspectives and applications. However, until now all presented studies on soft robots were limited to partly soft…
Legged robots offer several advantages when navigating unstructured environments, but they often fall short of the efficiency achieved by wheeled robots. One promising strategy to improve their energy economy is to leverage their natural…
We present OpenFish: an open source soft robotic fish which is optimized for speed and efficiency. The soft robotic fish uses a combination of an active and passive tail segment to accurately mimic the thunniform swimming mode. Through the…
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…
The ocean vast unexplored regions and diverse soft-bodied marine organisms have spurred interest in bio-inspired underwater soft robotics. Recent advances have enabled new capabilities in underwater movement, sensing, and interaction.…
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…
Developing soft robots that can control their own life-cycle and degrade on-demand while maintaining hyper-elasticity is a significant research challenge. On-demand degradable soft robots, which conserve their original functionality during…
Water quality monitoring is essential for protecting aquatic ecosystems and detecting environmental pollution. This paper presents the design and experimental validation of a bio-inspired miniature submarine for low-cost water quality…
Design of robots at the small scale is a trial-and-error based process, which is costly and time-consuming. There are few dynamic simulation tools available to accurately predict the motion or performance of untethered microrobots as they…
Soft robotics has emerged as a promising technology that holds great potential for various application areas. This is due to soft materials unique properties, including flexibility, safety, and shock absorption, among others. Despite many…
Many different robots have been designed and built to work under water. In many cases, researchers have chosen to use bio-inspired platforms. In most cases, the main goal of the fish inspired robots has been set to autonomously swim and…
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…
This paper proposes a new type of actuator at millimeter scale, which is based on Simplified Electro-Permanent (SEP) magnets. The new actuator can achieve connection and smooth motion by controlling the polarity of SEP magnets. Analyses…
Fish locomotion is enabled by fin rays-actively deformable boney rods, which manipulate the fin to facilitate complex interaction with surrounding water and enable propulsion. Replicating the performance and kinematics of the biological fin…
Soft robots have been increasingly utilized as sophisticated tools in physical rehabilitation, particularly for assisting patients with neuromotor impairments. However, many soft robotics for rehabilitation applications are characterized by…
Metachronal locomotion is a widespread swimming mode used by aquatic swarming organisms to achieve performance and maneuverability in the intermediate Reynolds number regime. Our understanding of the mechanisms driving these abilities is…
Measuring energy consumption of marine organisms often requires enclosing the animal in a small, sealed chamber to quantify changes in oxygen concentration of the surrounding water. This can limit measurements of free-swimming organisms by…