Related papers: Soft Electrothermal Meta-Actuator for Robust Multi…
We present electrothermal microelectromechanical (MEMS) actuators as a practical platform for straining 2D materials. The advantages of the electrothermal actuator is its high output force and displacement for low input voltage, but its…
Active metamaterials are a type of metamaterial with tunable properties enabled by structural reconfigurations. Existing active metamaterials often achieve only a limited number of structural reconfigurations upon the application of an…
Bio-inspired soft robots have already shown the ability to handle uncertainty and adapt to unstructured environments. However, their availability is partially restricted by time-consuming, costly and highly supervised design-fabrication…
Soft pneumatic actuators are widely used in soft robotics because they can produce large motions while remaining compliant enough to interact safely with objects, environments, and the human body. However, their performance is not solely…
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…
Compared to traditional rigid robotics, soft robotics has attracted increasing attention due to its advantages as compliance, safety, and low cost. As an essential part of soft robotics, the soft robotic gripper also shows its superior…
Control of soft robotic manipulators remains a challenge for designs with advanced capabilities and novel actuation. Two significant limitations are multi-axis, three-dimensional motion of soft bodies alongside actuator dynamics and…
The research aims to expand tactile feedback beyond vibrations to various modes of stimuli, such as indentation, vibration, among others. By incorporating soft material into the design of a novel tactile actuator, we can achieve…
Object manipulation in robotics faces challenges due to diverse object shapes, sizes, and fragility. Gripper-based methods offer precision and low degrees of freedom (DOF) but the gripper limits the kind of objects to grasp. On the other…
This paper contains a thorough investigation of the performance of electrically activated layered soft dielectric composite actuators under plane deformation. Noting that the activation can be induced controlling either the voltage or the…
Metamaterials offer a powerful way to manipulate a variety of physical fields ranging from wave fields (electromagnetic field, acoustic field, elastic wave, etc.), static fields (static magnetic field, static electric field) to diffusive…
Realizing active metasurfaces with substantial tunability is important for many applications but remains challenging due to difficulties in dynamically tuning light-matter interactions at subwavelength scales. Here, we introduce reversible…
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…
Thermal micro-actuators are a promising solution to the need for large-displacement, gentle handling force, low-power MEMS actuators. Potential applications of these devices are micro-relays, assembling and miniature medical…
Series Elastic Actuators provide many benefits in force control of robots in unconstrained environments. These benefits include high force fidelity, extremely low impedance, low friction, and good force control bandwidth. Series Elastic…
Integrating Brain-Machine Interfaces into non-clinical applications like robot motion control remains difficult - despite remarkable advancements in clinical settings. Specifically, EEG-based motor imagery systems are still error-prone,…
We propose an optimal operation control strategy for an electro-thermal microgrid. Compared to existing work, our approach increases flexibility by operating the thermal network with variable flow temperatures and in that way explicitly…
Modulating the stiffness of soft actuators is crucial for improving the efficiency of interaction with the environment. However, current stiffness modulation mechanisms are hard to achieve high lateral stiffness and a wide range of bending…
Real-world passive radiative cooling requires highly emissive, selective, and omnidirectional thermal emitters to maintain the radiative cooler at a certain temperature below the ambient temperature while maximizing the net cooling power.…
Heat management is crucial for state-of-the-art applications such as passive radiative cooling, thermally adjustable wearables, and camouflage systems. Their adaptive versions, to cater to varied requirements, lean on the potential of…