Related papers: Multimodal Limbless Crawling Soft Robot with a Kir…

In most macro-scale robotics systems , propulsion and controls are enabled through a physical tether or complex on-board electronics and batteries. A tether simplifies the design process but limits the range of motion of the robot, while…

Bipedal robots are a fascinating and advanced category of robots designed to mimic human form and locomotion. The development of the bipedal robots is a significant milestone in robotics. However, even the most advanced bipedal robots are…

Compared to conventional wheeled transportation systems designed for flat surfaces, soft robots exhibit exceptional adaptability to various terrains, enabling stable movement in complex environments. However, due to the risk of collision…

Animals achieve robust locomotion by offloading regulation from the brain to physical couplings within the body. In contrast, locomotion in artificial systems often depends on centralized processors. We introduce a rapid and autonomous…

Biomimicry has played a pivotal role in robotics. In contrast to rigid robots, bio-inspired robots exhibit an inherent compliance, facilitating versatile movements and operations in constrained spaces. The robot implementation in…

This study examines a biology-inspired approach of using reconfigurable articulation to reduce the control requirement for soft robotic arms. We construct a robotic arm by assembling Kresling origami modules that exhibit predictable…

Robots are becoming increasingly essential for traversing complex environments such as disaster areas, extraterrestrial terrains, and marine environments. Yet, their potential is often limited by mobility and adaptability constraints. In…

Fully soft bistable mechanisms have shown extensive applications ranging from soft robotics, wearable devices, and medical tools, to energy harvesting. However, the lack of design and fabrication methods that are easy and potentially…

Amphibious robots, operating seamlessly across land and water, are advancing applications in conservation, disaster response, and defense. Their performance depends on locomotion mechanisms, actuation technologies, and sensor-control…

Legged robot locomotion on a dynamic rigid surface (i.e., a rigid surface moving in the inertial frame) involves complex full-order dynamics that is high-dimensional, nonlinear, and time-varying. Towards deriving an analytically tractable…

Legged locomotion enables robotic systems to traverse extremely challenging terrains. In many real-world scenarios, the terrain is not that difficult and these mixed terrain types introduce the need for flexible use of different walking…

Robots built from soft materials can alter their shape and size in a particular profile. This shape-changing ability could be extremely helpful for rescue robots and those operating in unknown terrains and environments. In changing shape,…

In this paper, we speculate on a possible application of Liquid Crystal Elastomers to the field of soft robotics. In particular, we study a concept for limbless locomotion that is amenable to miniaturisation. For this purpose, we formulate…

This paper introduces a new type of soft continuum robot, called SCoReS, which is capable of self-controlling continuously its curvature at the segment level; in contrast to previous designs which either require external forces or machine…

Much current study of legged locomotion has rightly focused on foot traction forces, including on granular media. Future legged millirobots will need to go through terrain, such as brush or other vegetation, where the body contact forces…

Kirigami-inspired metamaterials are attracting increasing interest because of their ability to achieve extremely large strains and shape changes via out-of-plane buckling. While in flat kirigami sheets the ligaments buckle simultaneously as…

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…

Locomotion is typically studied either in continuous media where bodies and legs experience forces generated by the flowing medium, or on solid substrates dominated by friction. In the former, centralized coordination is believed to…

Amphibians adapt their morphologies and motions to accommodate movement in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Inspired by these biological features, we present PuffyBot, an untethered shape morphing robot capable of changing its…

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…