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The ability of robots to navigate through doors is crucial for their effective operation in indoor environments. Consequently, extensive research has been conducted to develop robots capable of opening specific doors. However, the diverse…
Antagonistic artificial muscles can decouple joint torque and stiffness, but contact transients often degrade this independence. We present a unified real-time framework applicable across pneumatic, electrohydraulic, and dielectric…
Robotic hands with soft surfaces can perform stable grasping, but the high friction of the soft surfaces makes it difficult to release objects, or to perform operations that require sliding. To solve this issue, we previously developed a…
In assistive robots, compliant actuator is a key component in establishing safe and satisfactory physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). The performance of compliant actuators largely depends on the stiffness of the elastic element.…
Vehicle power-trains use a variable transmission (multiple gear-ratios) to minimize motor size and maximize efficiency while meeting a wide-range of operating points. Robots could similarly benefit from variable transmission to save weight…
This paper presents a robotic system where the gear-ratio of an actuator is dynamically changed to either leverage or attenuate the natural load dynamics. Based on this principle, lightweight robotic systems can be made fast and strong;…
Contact-rich manipulation tasks in unstructured environments pose significant robustness challenges for robot learning, where unexpected collisions can cause damage and hinder policy acquisition. Existing soft end-effectors face fundamental…
Operating in environments too harsh or inaccessible for humans is one of the critical roles expected of robots. However, such environments often pose risks to electronic components as well. To overcome this, various approaches have been…
Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…
Most traditional robotic mechanisms feature inelastic joints that are unable to robustly handle large deformations and off-axis moments. As a result, the applied loads are transferred rigidly throughout the entire structure. The…
Able to grasp objects of any shape and size, universal grippers using variable stiffness phenomenon such as granular jamming have been developed for disaster robotics application. However, as their contact interface is mainly composed of…
Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) often face a high risk of collision during autonomous flight, particularly in cluttered and unstructured environments. To mitigate the collision impact on sensitive onboard devices, resilient MAVs with…
In this paper, a compressed air-actuated soft robotic module was developed by incorporating a shape memory alloy (SMA) wire into its structure to achieve the desired bending angle with greater precision. First, a fiber-reinforced bending…
In recent years, miniature wall-climbing robots have attracted widespread attention due to their significant potential in equipment inspection and in-situ repair applications. Traditional wall-climbing systems typically rely on…
Evaluating and updating the obstacle avoidance velocity for an autonomous robot in real-time ensures robustness against noise and disturbances. A passive damping controller can obtain the desired motion with a torque-controlled robot, which…
Fluid-based soft actuators are an attractive option for lightweight and human-safe robots. These actuators, combined with fluid pressure force feedback, are in principle a form of series-elastic actuation (SEA), in which nearly all…
Variable stiffness actuators undergo lower peak force in contacts compared to their rigid counterparts, and are thus safer for human-robot interaction. Furthermore, they can store energy in their elastic element and can release it later to…
Aerial manipulators (AMs) are gaining increasing attention in automated transportation and emergency services due to their superior dexterity compared to conventional multirotor drones. However, their practical deployment is challenged by…
This paper presents the integration of a Variable Stiffness Link (VSL) for long-reach aerial manipulation, enabling adaptable mechanical coupling between an aerial multirotor platform and a dual-arm manipulator. Conventional long-reach…
We theoretically demonstrate a gate-tunable superconducting spin valve effect (SVE) in a van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure composed of a monolayer superconductor (S) sandwiched between two ferromagnetic (F) monolayers (F/S/F). By…