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The objective of this work is to design and develop a bio-inspired soft and articulated armwing structure which will be an integral component of a morphing aerial co-bot, Aerobat. In our design, we draw inspiration from bats. Bat membranous…
Inspired by the necessity of morphological adaptation in animals, a growing body of work has attempted to expand robot training to encompass physical aspects of a robot's design. However, reinforcement learning methods capable of optimizing…
Soft robots offer adaptability and safe interaction with complex environments. Rapid prototyping kits that allow soft robots to be assembled easily will allow different geometries to be explored quickly to suit different environments or to…
Navigating rugged terrain and steep slopes is a challenge for mobile robots. Conventional legged and wheeled systems struggle with these environments due to limited traction and stability. Northeastern University's COBRA (Crater Observing…
We propose an algorithmic strategy for improving the efficiency of Monte Carlo searches for the low-energy states of proteins. Our strategy is motivated by a model of how proteins alter their shapes. In our model when proteins fold under…
While most insect-inspired robots come with a simple tarsus such as a hemispherical foot tip, insect legs have complex tarsal structures and claws, which enable them to walk on complex terrain. Their sharp claws can smoothly attach and…
The recent emergence of chirality in mechanical metamaterials has revolutionized the field, enabling achievements in wave propagation and polarization control. Despite being an intrinsic feature of some molecules and ubiquitous in our…
Robotic arms are key components in fruit-harvesting robots. In agricultural settings, conventional serial or parallel robotic arms often fall short in meeting the demands for a large workspace, rapid movement, enhanced capability of…
The logarithmic spiral is observed as a common pattern in several living beings across kingdoms and species. Some examples include fern shoots, prehensile tails, and soft limbs like octopus arms and elephant trunks. In the latter cases,…
In this study, we present a concept of morphing structure -- featuring an arch mounted on a compliant base -- that can be reconfigured via snap-through buckling and leverages bistability to retain its morphed shape. We show that…
Marine exploration is essential to understanding ocean processes and organisms. While the use of current unmanned underwater vehicles has enabled many discoveries, there are still plenty of limitations toward exploring complex environments.…
Robotic arms built from stiffness-adjustable, continuously bending segments serially connected with revolute joints have the ability to change their mechanical architecture and workspace, thus allowing high flexibility and adaptation to…
Thin bilayers made of elastic sheets with different strain recoveries can be used for dynamic shape morphing through ambient stimuli, such as temperature, mass diffusion, and light. As a fundamentally different approach to designing…
This paper presents the arrangement of an in-pipe climbing robot that works using a clever differential part to explore complex associations of lines. Standard wheeled/continued in-pipe climbing robots are leaned to slip and take while…
Birds in nature perform perching not only for rest but also for interaction with human such as the relationship with falconers. Recently, researchers achieve perching-capable aerial robots as a way to save energy, and deformable structure…
Origami-inspired mechanisms can transform flat sheets into functional three-dimensional dynamic structures that are lightweight, compact, and capable of complex motion. These properties make origami increasingly valuable in robotic and…
Flexible slender structures such as rods, ribbons, plates, and shells exhibit extreme nonlinear responses bending, twisting, buckling, wrinkling, and self contact, that defy conventional simulation frameworks. Discrete Differential Geometry…
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…
When modeling complex robot systems such as branched robots, whose kinematic structures are a tree, current techniques often require modeling the whole structure from scratch, even when partial models for the branches are available. This…
Many soft-body organisms found in nature flourish underwater. Similarly, soft robots are potentially well-suited for underwater environments partly because the problematic effects of gravity, friction, and harmonic oscillations are less…