Related papers: Embodying Physical Computing into Soft Robots
Soft robots are intrinsically capable of adapting to different environments by changing their shape in response to interaction forces with the environment. However, sensing and feedback are still required for higher level decisions and…
Inspired by the vertebrate branch of the animal kingdom, articulated soft robots are robotic systems embedding elastic elements into a classic rigid (skeleton-like) structure. Leveraging on their bodies elasticity, soft robots promise to…
In nature, biological organisms jointly evolve both their morphology and their neurological capabilities to improve their chances for survival. Consequently, task information is encoded in both their brains and their bodies. In robotics,…
Soft Continuum arms, such as trunk and tentacle robots, can be considered as the "dual" of traditional rigid-bodied robots in terms of manipulability, degrees of freedom, and compliance. Introduced two decades ago, continuum arms have not…
Continuum soft robots are mechanical systems entirely made of continuously deformable elements. This design solution aims to bring robots closer to invertebrate animals and soft appendices of vertebrate animals (e.g., an elephant's trunk, a…
The ocean vast unexplored regions and diverse soft-bodied marine organisms have spurred interest in bio-inspired underwater soft robotics. Recent advances have enabled new capabilities in underwater movement, sensing, and interaction.…
Almost all robotic systems in use have hard shells, which is limiting in many ways their full potential of physical interaction with humans or their surrounding environment. Robots with soft-shell covers offer an alternative morphology…
In this review we introduce the framework of reality-assisted evolution to summarize a growing trend towards combining model-based and model-free approaches to improve the design of physically embodied soft robots. In silico, data-driven…
To achieve real-world functionality, robots must have the ability to carry out decision-making computations. However, soft robots stretch and therefore need a solution other than rigid computers. Examples of embedding computing capacity…
Owing to the computational complexity of electronic structure algorithms running on classical digital computers, the range of molecular systems amenable to simulation remains tightly circumscribed even after many decades of work. Quantum…
Traditional software development in robotics is about programming functionality in the CPU of a given robot with a pre-defined architecture and constraints. With adaptive computing, instead, building a robotic behavior is about programming…
Collaboration is central to human behavior, enabling tasks beyond individual capability. This ability arises from coordinating actions through internal representations of others, a concept known as shared intelligence. Additionally, humans…
Previous humanoid robot research works treat the robot as a bipedal mobile manipulation platform, where only the feet and hands contact the environment. However, we humans use all body parts to interact with the world, e.g., we sit in…
Surgical robot simulation platform plays a crucial role in enhancing training efficiency and advancing research on robot learning. Much effort have been made by scholars on developing open-sourced surgical robot simulators to facilitate…
Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) allow us to manipulate objects in the physical world by providing a communication bridge between computation and actuation elements. In the current scheme of things, this sought-after control is marred by…
Physical embodiment is a required component for robots that are structurally coupled with their real-world environments. However, most socially interactive robots do not need to physically interact with their environments in order to…
This study demonstrates that the soft biological tissues of humans can be used as a type of soft body in physical reservoir computing. Soft biological tissues possess characteristics such as stress-strain nonlinearity and viscoelasticity…
Dynamic control of a soft-body robot to deliver complex behaviors with low-dimensional actuation inputs is challenging. In this paper, we present a computational approach to automatically generate versatile, underactuated control policies…
Simulating physical systems is a core component of scientific computing, encompassing a wide range of physical domains and applications. Recently, there has been a surge in data-driven methods to complement traditional numerical simulations…
Soft robotic manipulators offer operational advantage due to their compliant and deformable structures. However, their inherently nonlinear dynamics presents substantial challenges. Traditional analytical methods often depend on simplifying…