Related papers: Multimodal Limbless Crawling Soft Robot with a Kir…
This paper proposes a safety-critical locomotion control framework employed for legged robots exploring through infeasible path in obstacle-rich environments. Our research focus is on achieving safe and robust locomotion where robots…
Flexible robotics are capable of achieving various functionalities by shape morphing, benefiting from their compliant bodies and reconfigurable structures. Here we construct and study a class of origami springs generalized from the known…
Multi-modal robots expand their operations from one working medium to another, land to air for example. The majorities of multi-modal robots mainly refer to platforms that operate in two different media. However, for all-terrain tasks,…
Multi-legged robots with six or more legs are not in common use, despite designs with superior stability, maneuverability, and a low number of actuators being available for over 20 years. This may be in part due to the difficulty in…
This paper introduces a novel approach to interactive robots by leveraging the form-factor of cards to create thin robots equipped with vibrational capabilities for locomotion and haptic feedback. The system is composed of flat-shaped…
While undulatory swimming of elongate limbless robots has been extensively studied in open hydrodynamic environments, less research has been focused on limbless locomotion in complex, cluttered aquatic environments. Motivated by the concept…
Soft robots are distinguished by their flexibility and adaptability, allowing them to perform nearly impossible tasks for rigid robots. However, controlling their behavior is challenging due to their nonlinear material response and infinite…
We propose a mechanically simple and cheap design for a series elastic actuator with controllable stiffness. Such characteristics are necessary for animals for running, jumping, throwing, and manipulation, yet in robots, variable stiffness…
Limbless robots have the potential to maneuver through cluttered environments that conventional robots cannot traverse. As illustrated in their biological counterparts such as snakes and nematodes, limbless locomotors can benefit from…
This paper presents AquaMILR+, an untethered limbless robot designed for agile navigation in complex aquatic environments. The robot features a bilateral actuation mechanism that models musculoskeletal actuation in many anguilliform…
Advanced machine learning algorithms require platforms that are extremely robust and equipped with rich sensory feedback to handle extensive trial-and-error learning without relying on strong inductive biases. Traditional robotic designs,…
The ability to modify morphology in response to environmental changes represents a highly advantageous feature in biological organisms, facilitating their adaptation to diverse environmental conditions. While some robots have the capability…
Much of the Earth and many surfaces of extraterrestrial bodies are composed of in-cohesive particle matter. Locomoting on granular terrain is challenging for common robotic devices, either wheeled or legged. In this work, we discover a…
The Drosophila larva, a soft-body animal, can bend its body and roll efficiently to escape danger. However, contrary to common belief, this rolling motion is not driven by the imbalance of gravity and ground reaction forces. Through…
Swarm User Interfaces allow dynamic arrangement of user environments through the use of multiple mobile robots, but their operational range is typically confined to a single plane due to constraints imposed by their two-wheel propulsion…
Salamander-like quadruped robots are designed inspired by the skeletal structure of their biological counterparts. However, existing controllers cannot fully exploit these morphological features and largely rely on predefined gait patterns…
In this paper, we propose a novel design of a hybrid mobile robot with controllable stiffness and deformable shape. Compared to conventional mobile agents, our system can switch between rigid and compliant phases by solidifying or melting…
Soft robots have the potential to revolutionize the use of robotic systems with their capability of establishing safe, robust, and adaptable interactions with their environment, but their precise control remains challenging. In contrast,…
Classical rigid-bodied robotic systems are presented with proven success in theoretical development and industrial applications, are recently challenged by the emergence of soft robotics due to a growing need in physical human-robot…
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…