Related papers: SCCRUB: Surface Cleaning Compliant Robot Utilizing…
We present a research picking prototype related to our company's industrial waste sorting application. The goal of the prototype is to be as autonomous as possible and it both calibrates itself and improves its picking with minimal human…
Robots and artificial machines have been captivating the public for centuries, depicted first as threats to humanity, then as subordinates and helpers. In the last decade, the booming exposure of humans to robots has fostered an increasing…
Although soft robots show safer interactions with their environment than traditional robots, soft mechanisms and actuators still have significant potential for damage or degradation particularly during unmodeled contact. This article…
In robotic surgery, pattern cutting through a deformable material is a challenging research field. The cutting procedure requires a robot to concurrently manipulate a scissor and a gripper to cut through a predefined contour trajectory on…
Soft robotics technologies have gained growing interest in recent years, which allows various applications from manufacturing to human-robot interaction. Pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM), a typical soft actuator, has been widely applied to…
Labor shortages in the United States are impacting a number of industries including the meat processing sector. Collaborative technologies that work alongside humans while increasing production abilities may support the industry by…
A key challenge in intelligent robotics is creating robots that are capable of directly interacting with the world around them to achieve their goals. The last decade has seen substantial growth in research on the problem of robot…
Soft robots show compliance and have infinite degrees of freedom. Thanks to these properties, such robots can be leveraged for surgery, rehabilitation, biomimetics, unstructured environment exploring, and industrial grippers. In this case,…
Many industrial tasks-such as sanding, installing fasteners, and wire harnessing-are difficult to automate due to task complexity and variability. We instead investigate deploying robots in an assistive role for these tasks, where the robot…
Skilled robotic manipulation benefits from complex synergies between non-prehensile (e.g. pushing) and prehensile (e.g. grasping) actions: pushing can help rearrange cluttered objects to make space for arms and fingers; likewise, grasping…
Grasping is the dominant approach for robot manipulation, but only a single object can be grasped at a time. Nonprehensile manipulation offers richer set of interactions, however state-of-the-art is limited to using the end-effector only.…
Climbing soft robots are of tremendous interest in both science and engineering due to their potential applications in intelligent surveillance, inspection, maintenance, and detection under environments away from the ground. The challenge…
Soft robots manufactured with flexible materials can be highly compliant and adaptive to their surroundings, which facilitates their application in areas such as dexterous manipulation and environmental exploration. This paper aims at…
Soft robotics is an emerging technology in which engineers create flexible devices for use in a variety of applications. In order to advance the wide adoption of soft robots, ensuring their trustworthiness is essential; if soft robots are…
Continuum soft robots are mechanical systems entirely made of continuously deformable elements. This design solution aims to bring robots closer to invertebrate animals and soft appendices of vertebrate animals (e.g., an elephant's trunk, a…
Robotic manipulation of deformable objects gains great attention due to its wide applications including medical surgery, home assistance, and automatic food preparation. The ability to deform soft objects remains a great challenge for…
There are many spaces inaccessible to humans where robots could help deliver sensors and equipment. Many of these spaces contain three-dimensional passageways and uneven terrain that pose challenges for robot design and control. Everting…
Attempts to install a rotating tool at the end of a robot arm poly-articulated date back twenty years, but these robots were not designed for that. Indeed, two essential features are necessary for machining: high rigidity and precision in a…
Properly handling delicate produce with robotic manipulators is a major part of the future role of automation in agricultural harvesting and processing. Grasping with the correct amount of force is crucial in not only ensuring proper grip…
A robot's mechanical parts routinely wear out from normal functioning and can be lost to injury. For autonomous robots operating in isolated or hostile environments, repair from a human operator is often not possible. Thus, much work has…