Related papers: Improving Swimming Performance in Soft Robotic Fis…
While undulatory swimming of elongate limbless robots has been extensively studied in open hydrodynamic environments, less research has been focused on limbless locomotion in complex, cluttered aquatic environments. Motivated by the concept…
Rigid robots can be precise in repetitive tasks, but struggle in unstructured environments. Nature's versatility in such environments inspires researchers to develop biomimetic robots that incorporate compliant and contracting artificial…
Mimicking the graceful motion of swimming animals remains a core challenge in soft robotics due to the complexity of fluid-structure interaction and the difficulty of controlling soft, biomimetic bodies. Existing modeling approaches are…
This study presents the development and experimental verification of a biomimetic manta ray robot for underwater autonomous exploration. Inspired by manta rays, the robot uses flapping motion for propulsion to minimize seabed disturbance…
We present an open-source untethered quadrupedal soft robot platform for dynamic locomotion (e.g., high-speed running and backflipping). The robot is mostly soft (80 vol.%) while driven by four geared servo motors. The robot's soft body and…
Soft robots exhibit inherent compliance and safety, which makes them particularly suitable for applications requiring direct physical interaction with humans, such as surgical procedures. However, their nonlinear and hysteretic behavior,…
Soft robots are inherently compliant and have a strong potential to realize human-friendly and safe robots. Despite continued research highlighting the potential of soft robots, they remain largely confined to laboratory settings. In this…
We study a linear inviscid model of a passively flexible swimmer, calculating its propulsive performance, eigenvalues, and eigenfunctions with an eye towards clarifying the relationship between efficiency and resonance. The frequencies of…
Soft robots are known for their ability to perform tasks with great adaptability, enabled by their distributed, non-uniform stiffness and actuation. Bending is the most fundamental motion for soft robot design, but creating robust, and…
The collective swimming of soft robots in an infinite viscous fluid is an emergent phenomenon due to the non-reciprocal hydrodynamic interactions between individual swimmers. These physical interactions give rise to unique spatiotemporal…
Objects moving in fluids experience patterns of stress on their surfaces determined by their motion and the geometry of nearby boundaries. Fish and underwater robots can use these patterns for navigation. This paper extends this…
Designing soft robots poses considerable challenges: automated design approaches may be particularly appealing in this field, as they promise to optimize complex multi-material machines with very little or no human intervention.…
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…
Rapid acceleration and burst maneuvers in underwater robots depend less on maintaining precise resonance and more on force--velocity phase alignment during thrust generation. In this work, we investigate constrained-layer damping (CLD) as a…
Soft robots have immense potential given their inherent safety and adaptability, but challenges in soft actuator forces and design constraints have limited scaling up soft robots to larger sizes. Electrothermal shape memory alloy (SMA)…
Purpose of Review: This review provides an overview of the state of the art in bioinspired soft robotics with by examining advancements in actuation, functionality, modeling, and control. Recent Findings: Recent research into actuation…
Hydrodynamic interactions play a key role in the swimming behavior and power consumption of bio-inspired and bio-mimetic micro-swimmers, Cybernetic or artificial alike. As micro-robotic devices, bio-inspired micro-swimmers require fast and…
Modular soft robots combine the strengths of two traditionally separate areas of robotics. As modular robots, they can show robustness to individual failure and reconfigurability; as soft robots, they can deform and undergo large shape…
The pursuit of agile and efficient underwater robots, especially bio-mimetic robotic fish, has been impeded by challenges in creating motion controllers that are able to fully exploit their hydrodynamic capabilities. This paper addresses…
Sample Exploring the ocean environment holds profound significance in areas such as resource exploration and ecological protection. Underwater robots struggle with extreme water pressure and often cause noise and damage to the underwater…