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Evolution sculpts both the body plans and nervous systems of agents together over time. In contrast, in AI and robotics, a robot's body plan is usually designed by hand, and control policies are then optimized for that fixed design. The…

Electrically-driven soft robots based on piezoelectric actuators may enable compact form factors and maneuverability in complex environments. In most prior work, piezoelectric actuators are used to control a single degree of freedom. In…

Climbing Robots are being developed for applications ranging from cleaning to the inspection of difficult to reach constructions. Climbing robots should be capable of carrying a light payload and climbing on vertical surfaces with ability…

Lighter-than-air vehicles or blimps, are an evolving platform in robotics with several beneficial properties such as energy efficiency, collision resistance, and ability to work in close proximity to human users. While existing blimp…

Swarm robotic systems are systems in which multiple robots having simple functionality perform tasks through their cooperation, and are advantageous in that they can exhibit non-trivial macroscopic functions such as adaptability, fault…

In this paper, we present RhoMorph, a novel deformable planar lattice modular self-reconfigurable robot (MSRR) with a rhombus shaped module. Each module consists of a parallelogram skeleton with a single centrally mounted actuator that…

In this paper, we present a 2D numerical model developed to simulate the dynamics of soft, deformable particles. To accommodate significant particle deformations, the particle surface is represented as a narrow shell composed of mass points…

Tailoring the design of robot bodies for control purposes is implicitly performed by engineers, however, a methodology or set of tools is largely absent and optimization of morphology (shape, material properties of robot bodies, etc.) is…

This paper presents a modular in-pipeline climbing robot with a novel compliant foldable OmniCrawler mechanism. The circular cross-section of the OmniCrawler module enables a holonomic motion to facilitate the alignment of the robot in the…

For the majority of tasks performed by traditional serial robot arms, such as bin picking or pick and place, only two or three degrees of freedom (DOF) are required for motion; however, by augmenting the number of degrees of freedom,…

Design of robots at the small scale is a trial-and-error based process, which is costly and time-consuming. There are no good dynamic simulation tools to predict the motion or performance of a microrobot as it moves against a substrate. At…

Isomorphs are curves in the thermodynamic phase diagram of invariant excess entropy, structure, and dynamics, while pseudoisomorphs are curves of invariant structure and dynamics, but not of the excess entropy. The latter curves have been…

This article presents a new control approach and a dynamic model for engineered flapping flight with many interacting degrees of freedom. This paper explores the applications of neurobiologically inspired control systems in the form of…

Tendrils coil their shape to anchor the plant to supporting structures, allowing vertical growth toward light. Although climbing plants have been studied for a long time, extracting information regarding the relationship between the…

The ability to engineer complex three-dimensional shapes from planar sheets with precise, programmable control underpins emerging technologies in soft robotics, reconfigurable devices, and functional materials. Here, we present a…

Morphological development is part of the way any human or animal learns. The learning processes starts with the morphology at birth and progresses through changing morphologies until adulthood is reached. Biologically, this seems to…

Instability patterns of rolling up a sleeve appear more intricate than the ones of walking over a rug on floor, both characterized as uniaxially compressed soft-film/stiff-substrate systems. This can be explained by curvature effects. To…

We present the modeling, design, fabrication and feedback control of an earthworm-inspired soft robot capable of crawling on surfaces by actively manipulating the frictional force between its body and the surface. Earthworms are segmented…

This paper is a summary of the recently accomplished research work on flexible gripping systems. The goal is to develop a gripper which can be used for a great amount of geometrically variant workpieces. The economic aspect is of particular…

When humans perform contact-rich manipulation tasks, customized tools are often necessary to simplify the task. For instance, we use various utensils for handling food, such as knives, forks and spoons. Similarly, robots may benefit from…