Related papers: Multimodal Limbless Crawling Soft Robot with a Kir…
Limbless crawling is ubiquitous in biology, from cells to organisms. We develop and analyze a model for the dynamics of one-dimensional elastic crawlers, subject to active stress and deformation-dependent friction with the substrate. We…
Although wheeled robots have been predominant for planetary exploration, their geometry limits their capabilities when traveling over steep slopes, through rocky terrains, and in microgravity. Legged robots equipped with grippers are a…
Snakes are a remarkable evolutionary success story. Many snake-inspired robots have been proposed over the years. Soft robotic snakes (SRS) with their continuous and smooth bending capability better mimic their biological counterparts'…
Soft robotic snakes made of compliant materials can continuously deform their bodies and, therefore, mimic the biological snakes' flexible and agile locomotion gaits better than their rigid-bodied counterparts. Without wheel support, to…
Animals, such as birds, widely use multi-modal locomotion by combining legged and aerial mobility with dominant inertial effects. The robotic biomimicry of this multi-modal locomotion feat can yield ultra-flexible systems in terms of their…
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.…
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…
Soft crawling robots exhibit efficient locomotion across various terrains and demonstrate robustness to diverse environmental conditions. Here, we propose a valveless soft-legged robot that integrates a pair of rotary bellows-enclosed soft…
Soft robotic snakes (SRSs) have a unique combination of continuous and compliant properties that allow them to imitate the complex movements of biological snakes. Despite the previous attempts to develop SRSs, many have been limited to…
Dynamic quadrupedal locomotion over rough terrains reveals remarkable progress over the last few decades. Small-scale quadruped robots are adequately flexible and adaptable to traverse uneven terrains along sagittal direction, such as…
Soft compliant microrobots have the potential to deliver significant societal impact when deployed in applications such as search and rescue. In this research we present mCLARI, a body compliant quadrupedal microrobot of 20mm neutral body…
Dynamic bipedal robot locomotion has achieved remarkable success due in part to recent advances in trajectory generation and nonlinear control for stabilization. A key assumption utilized in both theory and experiments is that the robot's…
Traditional robots have rigid links and structures that limit their ability to interact with the dynamics of their immediate environment. For example, conventional robot manipulators with rigid links can only manipulate objects using…
In this paper we study crawling locomotion based on directional frictional interactions, namely, frictional forces that are sensitive to the sign of the sliding velocity. Surface interactions of this type are common in biology, where they…
Legged robots have demonstrated remarkable agility on rigid, stationary ground, but their locomotion reliability remains limited in non-inertial environments, where the supporting ground moves, tilts, or accelerates. Such conditions arise…
Reorientation (turning in plane) plays a critical role for all robots in any field application, especially those that in confined spaces. While important, reorientation remains a relatively unstudied problem for robots, including limbless…
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…
This paper presents the MOBIUS platform, a bipedal robot capable of walking, crawling, climbing, and rolling. MOBIUS features four limbs, two 6-DoF arms with two-finger grippers for manipulation and climbing, and two 4-DoF legs for…
Sprawling locomotion in vertebrates, particularly salamanders, demonstrates how body undulation and spinal mobility enhance stability, maneuverability, and adaptability across complex terrains. While prior work has separately explored…
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,…