Related papers: Haptic Perception via the Dynamics of Flexible Bod…
This study demonstrates that the soft biological tissues of humans can be used as a type of soft body in physical reservoir computing. Soft biological tissues possess characteristics such as stress-strain nonlinearity and viscoelasticity…
Over the past decades, we have witnessed a rapid emergence of soft and reconfigurable robots thanks to their capability to interact safely with humans and adapt to complex environments. However, their softness makes accurate control very…
Haptic exploration is a key skill for both robots and humans to discriminate and handle unknown objects or to recognize familiar objects. Its active nature is evident in humans who from early on reliably acquire sophisticated sensory-motor…
Robotic telemanipulation - the human-guided manipulation of remote objects - plays a pivotal role in several applications, from healthcare to operations in harsh environments. While visual feedback from cameras can provide valuable…
Humans activate muscles to shape the mechanical interaction with their environment, but can they harness this control mechanism to best sense the environment? We investigated how participants adapt their muscle activation to visual and…
Robots which interact with the physical world will benefit from a fine-grained tactile understanding of objects and surfaces. Additionally, for certain tasks, robots may need to know the haptic properties of an object before touching it. To…
Soft machines display shape adaptation to external circumstances due to their intrinsic compliance. To achieve increasingly more responsive behaviors upon interactions without relying on centralized computation, embodying memory directly in…
My research objective is to explicitly bridge the gap between high computational performance and low power dissipation of robot on-board hardware by designing a bio-inspired tapered whisker neuromorphic computing (also called reservoir…
Muscle-actuated control is a research topic that spans multiple domains, including biomechanics, neuroscience, reinforcement learning, robotics, and graphics. This type of control is particularly challenging as bodies are often overactuated…
Robotic manipulation of highly deformable cloth presents a promising opportunity to assist people with several daily tasks, such as washing dishes; folding laundry; or dressing, bathing, and hygiene assistance for individuals with severe…
Recent studies have demonstrated that the dynamics of physical systems can be utilized for the desired information processing under the framework of physical reservoir computing (PRC). Robots with soft bodies are examples of such physical…
Soft materials have many important roles in animal locomotion and object manipulation. In robotic applications soft materials can store and release energy, absorb impacts, increase compliance and increase the range of possible shape…
Biological systems, such as the octopus, exhibit masterful cross-scale manipulation by adaptively reconfiguring their entire form, a capability that remains elusive in robotics. Conventional soft grippers, while compliant, are mostly…
Motion perception is a critical capability determining a variety of aspects of insects' life, including avoiding predators, foraging and so forth. A good number of motion detectors have been identified in the insects' visual pathways.…
Robot-assisted dressing offers an opportunity to benefit the lives of many people with disabilities, such as some older adults. However, robots currently lack common sense about the physical implications of their actions on people. The…
Typically, AI researchers and roboticists try to realize intelligent behavior in machines by tuning parameters of a predefined structure (body plan and/or neural network architecture) using evolutionary or learning algorithms. Another but…
One of the many secrets to the success and prevalence of insects is their versatile, robust, and complex exoskeleton morphology. A fundamental challenge in insect-inspired robotics has been the fabrication of robotic exoskeletons that can…
The human somatosensory cortex is intimately linked to other central brain functions such as vision, audition, mechanoreception, and motor planning and control. These links are established through brain learning, and display a considerable…
Musculoskeletal humanoids are robots that closely mimic the human musculoskeletal system, offering various advantages such as variable stiffness control, redundancy, and flexibility. However, their body structure is complex, and muscle…
Robust control of complex engineered and biological systems hinges on the integration of feedforward and feedback mechanisms. This is exemplified in neural motor control, where feedforward muscle co-contraction complements sensory-driven…