Related papers: Improving Swimming Performance in Soft Robotic Fis…

Real-time proprioception is a challenging problem for soft robots, which have almost infinite degrees-of-freedom in body deformation. When multiple actuators are used, it becomes more difficult as deformation can also occur on actuators…

Developing kinesthetic haptic devices with advanced haptic rendering capabilities is challenging due to the limitations on driving mechanisms. In this study, we introduce a novel soft electrohydraulic actuator and develop a kinesthetic…

Fish in schooling formations navigate complex flow-fields replete with mechanical energy in the vortex wakes of their companions. Their schooling behaviour has been associated with evolutionary advantages including collective energy…

We present an efficient algorithm for motion planning and control of a robot system with a high number of degrees-of-freedom. These include high-DOF soft robots or an articulated robot interacting with a deformable environment. Our approach…

This research introduces a novel hydrofoil-based propulsion framework for unmanned aquatic robots, inspired by the undulating locomotion observed in select aquatic species. The proposed system incorporates a camber-modulating mechanism to…

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…

For nearly a century, researchers have tried to understand the swimming of aquatic animals in terms of a balance between the forward thrust from swimming movements and drag on the body. Prior approaches have failed to provide a separation…

We investigate the scenario that a robot needs to reach a designated goal after taking a sequence of appropriate actions in a non-static environment that is partially structured. One application example is to control a marine vehicle to…

Deep reinforcement learning is becoming increasingly popular for robot control algorithms, with the aim for a robot to self-learn useful feature representations from unstructured sensory input leading to the optimal actuation policy. In…

This work provides a complete framework for the simulation, co-optimization, and sim-to-real transfer of the design and control of soft legged robots. The compliance of soft robots provides a form of "mechanical intelligence" -- the ability…

Micro-nano-robotic swimmers have promising potential for future biomedical tasks such as targeted drug delivery and minimally-invasive diagnosis. An efficient method for controlled actuation of such nano-swimmers is applying a rotating…

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…

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…

Flexible robots have advantages over rigid robots in their ability to conform physically to their environment and to form a wide variety of shapes. Sensing the force applied by or to flexible robots is useful for both navigation and…

Soft robotic manipulators provide numerous advantages over conventional rigid manipulators in fragile environments such as the marine environment. However, developing analytic inverse models necessary for shape, motion, and force control of…

We investigate the role of resonance in finite-amplitude swimming of a flexible flat plate in a viscous fluid. The role of resonance in performance remains unclear for two reasons: i) a lack of definition of resonance for the fully-coupled…

The move to high performance applications greatly increases the demand to produce large instantaneous fluid forces for high-speed maneuvering and improved power efficiency for sustained propulsion. Animals achieve remarkable feats of…

A single flexible filament can be actuated to escape from the scallop theorem and generate net propulsion at low Reynolds number. In this work, we study the dynamics of a simple boundary-driven multi-filament swimmer, a two-arm clamshell…

Magnetically actuated fish-like robots offer promising solutions for underwater exploration due to their miniaturization and agility; however, precise control remains a significant challenge because of nonlinear fluid dynamics, flexible fin…

Soft robotics have gained increased attention from the robotic community due to their unique features such as compliance and human safety. Impressive amount of soft robotic prototypes have shown their superior performance over their rigid…