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Object rearrangement is a widely-applicable and challenging task for robots. Geometric constraints must be carefully examined to avoid collisions and combinatorial issues arise as the number of objects increases. This work studies the…
Natural organisms utilize distributed actuation through their musculoskeletal systems to adapt their gait for traversing diverse terrains or to morph their bodies for varied tasks. A longstanding challenge in robotics is to emulate this…
Origami offers a versatile framework for designing morphable structures and soft robots by exploiting the geometry of folds. Tubular origami structures can act as continuum manipulators that balance flexibility and strength. However,…
We introduce DIFFTACTILE, a physics-based differentiable tactile simulation system designed to enhance robotic manipulation with dense and physically accurate tactile feedback. In contrast to prior tactile simulators which primarily focus…
Force modulation of robotic manipulators has been extensively studied for several decades. However, it is not yet commonly used in safety-critical applications due to a lack of accurate interaction contact modeling and weak performance…
Aging populations and the rising prevalence of neurological and musculoskeletal disorders increase the demand for wearable mobility assistive devices that are effective, comfortable, and anatomically compatible. Many existing systems use…
Large-Scale Actuator Networks (LSAN) are a rapidly growing class of electromechanical systems. A prime application of LSANs in the industrial sector is distributed manipulation. LSAN's are typically implemented using: vibrating plates, air…
This paper addresses two intertwined needs for collaborative robots operating in shop-floor environments. The first is the ability to perform complex manipulation operations, such as those on articulated or even flexible objects, in a way…
This work presents the mechanical design and control of a novel small-size and lightweight Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) for aerial manipulation. To our knowledge, with a total take-off mass of only 2.0 kg, the proposed system is the most…
Optical metasurfaces (OMSs) have shown unprecedented capabilities for versatile wavefront manipulations at the subwavelength scale, thus opening fascinating perspectives for next generation ultracompact optical devices and systems. However,…
Moving a module in a modular robot is a very complex and error-prone process. Unlike in swarm, in the modular robots we are targeting, the moving module must keep the connection to, at least, one other module. In order to miniaturize each…
The geometric, aesthetic, and mathematical elegance of origami is being recognized as a powerful pathway to self-assembly of micro and nano-scale machines with programmable mechanical properties. The typical approach to designing the…
The recent development of modular origami structures has ushered in a new era for active metamaterials with multiple degrees of freedom (multi-DOF). Notably, no systematic inverse design approach for volumetric modular origami structures…
Effective force modulation during tissue manipulation is important for ensuring safe robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS). Strict requirements for in-vivo distal force sensing have led to prior sensor designs that trade off ease…
Dexterous manipulation requires careful reasoning over extrinsic contacts. The prevalence of deforming tools in human environments, the use of deformable sensors, and the increasing number of soft robots yields a need for approaches that…
This paper describes a 2D and 3D simulation engine that quantitatively models the statics, dynamics, and non-linear deformation of heterogeneous soft bodies in a computationally efficient manner. There is a large body of work simulating…
We present a differentiable dynamics solver that is able to handle frictional contact for rigid and deformable objects within a unified framework. Through a principled mollification of normal and tangential contact forces, our method…
Many robots are not equipped with a manipulator and many objects are not suitable for prehensile manipulation (such as large boxes and cylinders). In these cases, pushing is a simple yet effective non-prehensile skill for robots to interact…
Topology optimization is a powerful tool utilized in various fields for structural design. However, its application has primarily been restricted to static or passively moving objects, mainly focusing on hard materials with limited…
This chapter is about the fundamentals of fabrication, control, and human-robot interaction of a new type of collaborative robotic manipulators, called malleable robots, which are based on adjustable architectures of varying stiffness for…