Related papers: Tensegrity-based Robot Leg Design with Variable St…

Tensegrity robots, composed of rigid rods and flexible cables, exhibit high strength-to-weight ratios and significant deformations, which enable them to navigate unstructured terrains and survive harsh impacts. They are hard to control,…

Legged machines are becoming increasingly agile and adaptive but they have so far lacked the morphological diversity of legged animals, which have been rearranged and reshaped to fill millions of niches. Unlike their biological…

Biped robots usually adopt feet with a rigid structure that simplifies walking on flat grounds and yet hinders ground adaptation in unstructured environments, thus jeopardizing stability. We recently explored in the SoftFoot the idea of…

Entanglements like vines and branches in natural settings or cords and pipes in human spaces prevent mobile robots from accessing many environments. Legged robots should be effective in these settings, and more so than wheeled or tracked…

Tensegrities synergistically combine tensile (cable) and rigid (link) elements to achieve structural integrity, making them lightweight, packable, and impact resistant. Consequently, they have high potential for locomotion in unstructured…

To be useful tools in real scenarios, humanoid robots must realize tasks dynamically. This means that they must be capable of applying substantial forces, rapidly swinging their limbs, and also mitigating impacts that may occur during the…

We present a new open-source torque-controlled legged robot system, with a low-cost and low-complexity actuator module at its core. It consists of a high-torque brushless DC motor and a low-gear-ratio transmission suitable for impedance and…

While most insect-inspired robots come with a simple tarsus such as a hemispherical foot tip, insect legs have complex tarsal structures and claws, which enable them to walk on complex terrain. Their sharp claws can smoothly attach and…

Agile-legged robots have proven to be highly effective in navigating and performing tasks in complex and challenging environments, including disaster zones and industrial settings. However, these applications normally require the capability…

Operating robots precisely and at high speeds has been a long-standing goal of robotics research. Balancing these competing demands is key to enabling the seamless collaboration of robots and humans and increasing task performance. However,…

We present the design and implementation of HASTA (Hopper with Adjustable Stiffness for Terrain Adaptation), a vertical hopping robot with real-time tunable leg stiffness, aimed at optimizing energy efficiency across various ground profiles…

Adapting upper-limb impedance (i.e., stiffness, damping, inertia) is essential for humans interacting with dynamic environments for executing grasping or manipulation tasks. On the other hand, control methods designed for state-of-the-art…

Animals run robustly in diverse terrain. This locomotion robustness is puzzling because axon conduction velocity is limited to a few ten meters per second. If reflex loops deliver sensory information with significant delays, one would…

Functional structures from across the engineered and biological world combine rigid elements such as bones and columns with flexible ones such as cables, fibers and membranes. These structures are known loosely as tensegrities, since these…

Multi-legged elongate robots hold promise for maneuvering through complex environments. Prior work has demonstrated that reliable locomotion can be achieved using open-loop body undulation and foot placement on rugose terrain. However,…

Tactile sensing on human feet is crucial for motion control, however, has not been explored in robotic counterparts. This work is dedicated to endowing tactile sensing to legged robot's feet and showing that a single-legged robot can be…

Impact mitigation is crucial to the stable locomotion of legged robots, especially in high-speed dynamic locomotion. This paper presents a leg locomotion system including the nonlinear active compliance control and the active impedance…

This paper presents a novel, modular, cable-driven soft robotic arm featuring multi-segment reconfigurability. The proposed architecture enables a stackable system with independent segment control, allowing scalable adaptation to diverse…

In biomechanics and robotics, elasticity plays a crucial role in enhancing locomotion efficiency and stability. Traditional approaches in legged robots often employ series elastic actuators (SEA) with discrete rigid components, which, while…

This paper presents the first steps toward a soft dolphin robot using a bio-inspired approach to mimic dolphin flexibility. The current dolphin robot uses a minimalist approach, with only two actuated cable-driven degrees of freedom…