Related papers: Geometrically Exact Hard Magneto-Elastic Cosserat …
Deep indentation of soft materials is ubiquitous across scales in nature and engineering, yet accurate predictions of contact behaviors under extreme deformations ($\delta/R > 1$) remain elusive due to geometric and material nonlinearities.…
Soft robots, particularly magnetic soft robots, require specialized simulation tools to accurately model their deformation under external magnetic fields. However, existing platforms often lack dedicated support for magnetic materials,…
In any geometrically nonlinear quadratic Cosserat-micropolar extended continuum model formulated in the deformation gradient field $F := \nabla\varphi: \Omega \to \mathrm{GL}^+(n)$ and the microrotation field $R: \Omega \to \mathrm{SO}(n)$,…
The proliferation of 3D representations, from explicit meshes to implicit neural fields and more, motivates the need for simulators agnostic to representation. We present a data-, mesh-, and grid-free solution for elastic simulation for any…
Grip, walk, crawl, and jump. Soft robots are integrated functional structures composed of compliant mechanisms, whose activity spans various industrial applications such as surgery, healthcare, surveillance, and even planetary exploration.…
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…
Soft robotics is an emerging field of research where the robot body is composed of compliant and soft materials. It allows the body to bend, twist, and deform to move or to adapt its shape to the environment for grasping, all of which are…
This paper presents a topology-inspired morphological descriptor for soft continuum robots by combining a pseudo-rigid-body (PRB) model with Morse theory to achieve a quantitative characterization of robot morphologies. By counting critical…
We generalize the compact group approach to conducting systems to give a self-consistent analytical solution to the problem of the effective quasistatic electrical conductivity of macroscopically homogeneous and isotropic dispersions of…
Precise manipulation of shape-morphing responsive materials is crucial for applications in soft robotics and adaptive structures. While notable precision has been achieved in thin two-dimensional sheets, an accurate volumetric…
The virtual element method (VEM) allows discretization of the problem domain with polygons in 2D. The polygons can have an arbitrary number of sides and can be concave or convex. These features, among others, are attractive for meshing…
We propose a first example of a simple classical field theory with nonholonomic constraints. Our model is a straightforward modification of a Cosserat rod. Based on a mechanical analogy, we argue that the constraint forces should be modeled…
Large deformations play a central role in the shape transformations of slender active and biological structures. A classical example is the eversion of the Volvox embryo, which demonstrates the need for shell theories that can describe…
This work presents a numerical formulation to model isotropic viscoelastic material behavior for membranes and thin shells. The surface and the shell theory are formulated within a curvilinear coordinate system, which allows the…
In this work, we utilize discrete geometric mechanics to derive a 2nd-order variational integrator so as to simulate rigid body dynamics. The developed integrator is to simulate the motion of a free rigid body and a quad-rotor. We…
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…
In this work, we study the mechanics of metamaterial sheets inspired by the pellicle of Euglenids. They are composed of interlocking elastic rods which can freely slide along their edges. We characterize the kinematics and the mechanics of…
Soft machines typically exhibit slow locomotion speed and low manipulation strength because of intrinsic limitations of soft materials. Here, we present a generic design principle that harnesses mechanical instability for a variety of…
Recently, suction-based robotic systems with microscopic features or active suction components have been proposed to grip rough and irregular surfaces. However, sophisticated fabrication methods or complex control systems are required for…
The compliance of soft robotic arms renders the development of accurate kinematic & dynamical models especially challenging. The most widely used model in soft robotic kinematics assumes Piecewise Constant Curvature (PCC). However, PCC…