Related papers: WAVE: Worm Gear-based Adaptive Variable Elasticity…
Stroke-induced motor impairment often results in substantial loss of upper-limb function, creating a strong demand for rehabilitation robots that enable safe and transparent physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). Variable stiffness…
This paper expounds the design and control of a new Variable Stiffness Series Elastic Actuator (VSSEA). It is established by employing a modular mechanical design approach that allows us to effectively optimise the stiffness modulation…
Variable Stiffness Actuators prove invaluable for robotics applications in unstructured environments, fostering safe interactions and enhancing task adaptability. Nevertheless, their mechanical design inevitably results in larger and…
Variable stiffness actuator (VSA) designs are manifold. Conventional model-based control of these nonlinear systems is associated with high effort and design-dependent assumptions. In contrast, machine learning offers a promising…
This study is part of research aiming at increasing the range of dynamic tasks for teleoperated field robotics in order to allow operators to use the full range of human motions without being limited by the dynamics of the robotic…
Variable impedance actuators (VIAs) as tool devices for teleoperation could extend the range of tasks that humans can perform through a teleoperated robot by mimicking the change of upper limb stiffness that humans perform for different…
Compliance in actuation has been exploited to generate highly dynamic maneuvers such as throwing that take advantage of the potential energy stored in joint springs. However, the energy storage and release could not be well-timed yet. On…
The legged robots with variable stiffness actuators (VSAs) can achieve energy-efficient and versatile locomotion. However, equipping legged robots with VSAs in real-world application is usually restricted by (i) the redundant mechanical…
Soft robotic actuators are safe and adaptable devices with inherent compliance, which makes them attractive for manipulating delicate and complex objects. Researchers have integrated stiff materials into soft actuators to increase their…
Elastic actuation taps into elastic elements' energy storage for dynamic motions beyond rigid actuation. While Series Elastic Actuators (SEA) and Variable Stiffness Actuators (VSA) are highly sophisticated, they do not fully provide control…
Collaborative robots must simultaneously be safe enough to operate in close proximity to human operators and powerful enough to assist users in industrial tasks such as lifting heavy equipment. The requirement for safety necessitates that…
We propose a novel tri-fingered soft robotic gripper with decoupled stiffness and shape control capability for performing adaptive grasping with minimum system complexity. The proposed soft fingers adaptively conform to object shapes…
This paper presents a novel actuator system combining a twisted string actuator (TSA) with a winch mechanism. Relative to traditional hydraulic and pneumatic systems in robotics, TSAs are compact and lightweight but face limitations in…
Inflated continuum robots are promising for a variety of navigation tasks, but controlling their motion with a small number of actuators is challenging. These inflated beam robots tend to buckle under compressive loads, producing extremely…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…
Intuitively, prostheses with user-controllable stiffness could mimic the intrinsic behavior of the human musculoskeletal system, promoting safe and natural interactions and task adaptability in real-world scenarios. However, prosthetic…
Wheeled-legged robots combine the energy efficiency of wheeled locomotion with the terrain adaptability of legged systems, making them promising platforms for agile mobility in complex and dynamic environments. However, enabling…
Compliance is a strong requirement for human-robot interactions. Soft-robots provide an opportunity to cover the lack of compliance in conventional actuation mechanisms, however, the control of them is very challenging given their intrinsic…
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…
This study introduces an innovative design for a Variable Stiffness 3 Degrees of Freedom actuated wrist capable of actively and continuously adjusting its overall stiffness by modulating the active length of non-linear elastic elements.…