Related papers: Tensegrity-based Robot Leg Design with Variable St…
Many-legged elongated robots show promise for reliable mobility on rugged landscapes. However, most studies on these systems focus on planar motion planning without addressing rapid vertical motion. Despite their success on mild rugged…
Serially connected robots are promising candidates for performing tasks in confined spaces such as search-and-rescue in large-scale disasters. Such robots are typically limbless, and we hypothesize that the addition of limbs could improve…
Adaptive morphogenetic robots adapt their morphology and control policies to meet changing tasks and environmental conditions. Many such systems leverage soft components, which enable shape morphing but also introduce simulation and control…
Bipedal walking is one of the most important hallmarks of human that robots have been trying to mimic for many decades. Although previous control methodologies have achieved robot walking on some terrains, there is a need for a framework…
Legged robot research is presently focused on bipedal or quadrupedal robots, despite capabilities to build robots with many more legs to potentially improve locomotion performance. This imbalance is not necessarily due to hardware…
Spasticity is a common movement disorder symptom in individuals with cerebral palsy, hereditary spastic paraplegia, spinal cord injury and stroke, being one of the most disabling features in the progression of these diseases. Despite the…
Soft machines typically exhibit slow locomotion speed and low manipulation strength because of intrinsic limitations of soft materials. Here, we present a generic design principle that harnesses mechanical instability for a variety of…
Snakes can move through almost any terrain. Similarly, snake robots hold the promise as a versatile platform to traverse complex environments like earthquake rubble. Unlike snake locomotion on flat surfaces which is inherently stable, when…
This paper expounds the design and control of a new Variable Stiffness Series Elastic Actuator (VSSEA). It is established by employing a modular mechanical design approach that allows us to effectively optimise the stiffness modulation…
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…
Soft robots have the ability to adapt to their environment, which makes them suitable for use in disaster areas and agricultural fields, where their mobility is constrained by complex terrain. One of the main challenges in developing soft…
This paper introduces a novel six-axis force/torque sensor tailored for compact and lightweight legged robots. Unlike traditional strain gauge-based sensors, the proposed non-contact design employs photocouplers, enhancing resistance to…
This work proposes a force control strategy with prescribed transient performance for the legs of a wheel-legged robotic system to realize the posture adjustment on uneven roads. A dynamic model of the robotic system is established with the…
Tensegrity structures are becoming widely used in robotics, such as continuously bending soft manipulators and mobile robots to explore unknown and uneven environments dynamically. Estimating their shape, which is the foundation of their…
We introduce a robust control architecture for the whole-body motion control of torque controlled robots with arms and legs. The method is based on the robust control of contact forces in order to track a planned Center of Mass trajectory.…
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…
Multi-legged robots deployed in complex missions are susceptible to physical damage in their legs, impairing task performance and potentially compromising mission success. This letter presents a rapid, training-free damage recovery…
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…
Collaborative robots and space manipulators contain significant joint flexibility. It complicates the control design, compromises the control bandwidth, and limits the tracking accuracy. The imprecise knowledge of the flexible joint…
Balancing oneself using the spine is a physiological alignment of the body posture in the most efficient manner by the muscular forces for mammals. For this reason, we can see many disabled quadruped animals can still stand or walk even…