Related papers: On Steerability Factors for Growing Vine Robots
Tip-extending soft robots that "grow" via pneumatic eversion of their body material have demonstrated applications in exploration of cluttered environments. During growth, the motion and force of the robot tip can be controlled in three…
RoBoa is a vine-like search and rescue robot that can explore narrow and cluttered environments such as destroyed buildings. The robot assists rescue teams in finding and communicating with trapped people. It employs the principle of vine…
Flexible robots have advantages over rigid robots in their ability to conform physically to their environment and to form a wide variety of shapes. Sensing the force applied by or to flexible robots is useful for both navigation and…
Aerial robotic arms aim to enable inspection and environment interaction in otherwise hard-to-reach areas from the air. However, many aerial manipulators feature bulky or heavy robot manipulators mounted to large, high-payload aerial…
Stability and reliable operation under a spectrum of environmental conditions is still an open challenge for soft and continuum style manipulators. The inability to carry sufficient load and effectively reject external disturbances are two…
Despite a significant proportion of the Earth being covered in water, exploration of what lies below has been limited due to the challenges and difficulties inherent in the process. Current state of the art robots such as Remotely Operated…
Shape change enables new capabilities for robots. One class of robots capable of dramatic shape change is soft growing "vine" robots. These robots usually feature global actuation methods for bending that limit them to simple,…
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…
Soft growing vine robots show great potential for navigation and decontamination tasks in the nuclear industry. This paper introduces a novel hybrid continuum-eversion robot designed to address certain challenges in relation to navigating…
Piping inspection robots play an essential role for industries as they can reduce human effort and pose a lesser risk to their lives. Generally, the locomotion techniques of these robots can be classified into mechanical and bioinspired. By…
Robots are increasingly being deployed in agriculture to support sustainable practices and improve productivity. They offer strong potential to enable precise, efficient, and environmentally friendly operations. However, most existing…
Inflatable structures used in soft robotics applications exhibit unique characteristics. In particular, the tip-extension structure, which grows from the tip, can grow without friction against the environment. However, these inflatable…
A distinctive feature of quadrupeds that is integral to their locomotion is the tail. Tails serve many purposes in biological systems including propulsion, counterbalance, and stabilization while walking, running, climbing, or jumping.…
Continuum and soft robots can leverage complex actuator shapes to take on useful shapes while actuating only a few of their many degrees of freedom. Continuum robots that also grow increase the range of potential shapes that can be actuated…
This paper explores the design strategies for hybrid pole- or trunk-climbing robots, focusing on methods to inform design decisions and assess metrics such as adaptability and performance. A wheeled-grasping hybrid robot with modular,…
Tip-growing eversion robots are renowned for their ability to access remote spaces through narrow passages. However, achieving reliable navigation remains a significant challenge. Existing solutions often rely on artificial muscles…
The purpose of this research is to design, fabricate and test a tendon driven a continuum soft robot with three modular segments, each of which has a tunable stiffness enabled by layer jamming technology. Compared with previous studies, the…
Rehabilitation of aging pipes requires accurate condition assessment and mapping far into the pipe interiors. Soft growing vine robot systems are particularly promising for navigating confined, sinuous paths such as in pipes, but are…
Whenever a flapping robot moves along a trajectory it experiences some vibration about its mean path. Even for a hovering case, a flier experiences such vibration due to the oscillatory nature of the aerodynamic forces. In this paper we…
This paper introduces a Cosserat rod based mathematical model for modeling a self-controllable variable curvature soft continuum robot. This soft continuum robot has a hollow inner channel and was developed with the ability to perform…