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This study proposes a soft robotic device with a slim and flexible body that switches between air blowing and suction with a single airflow control. Suction is achieved by jet flow entraining surrounding air, and blowing is achieved by…
The ability to optically trap and manipulate artificial microswimmers such as active Janus particles (JPs) provides a breakthrough in active matter research and applications. However, it presents significant challenges because of the…
We propose an experiment to demonstrate spontaneous ordering and symmetry breaking of kinesin-driven microtubules confined to an optical trap. Calculations involving the feasibility of such an experiment are first performed which analyze…
The velocity autocorrelation function (VAF) for a two-dimensional one-component plasma (OCP) is investigated by employing molecular dynamics techniques. The VAF exhibits well defined oscillations whose frequency is independent of the…
Many elastic structures exhibit rapid shape transitions between two possible equilibrium states: umbrellas become inverted in strong wind and hopper popper toys jump when turned inside-out. This snap-through is a general motif for the…
In precision crop protection, (target-orientated) object detection in image processing can help navigate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV, crop protection drones) to the right place to apply the pesticide. Unnecessary application of non-target…
Plants are a paradigm for active shape control in response to stimuli. For instance, it is well-known that a tilted plant will eventually straighten vertically, demonstrating the influence of both an external stimulus, gravity, and an…
This paper introduces a new type of soft continuum robot, called SCoReS, which is capable of self-controlling continuously its curvature at the segment level; in contrast to previous designs which either require external forces or machine…
Soft robots, while highly adaptable to diverse environments through various actuation methods, still face significant performance boundary due to the inherent properties of materials. These limitations manifest in the challenge of…
A new direct air capture (DAC) technology uses a moisture swing (MS) process with anion exchange membranes, potentially offering a more energy-efficient way to remove CO2 from the air. In this MS process, the membrane absorbs CO2 as it…
This study presents investigations on pulsed loading of a magneto-optical trap (MOT) on an atom chip in an UHV environment. Using three parallel resistively heated Rb-metal dispensers activated by pulsed current supply, approximately 3.0…
Using detailed first-principles calculations, we investigate the hopping rate of vacancies in phosphorene, an emerging elemental 2D material besides graphene. Our work predicts that a direct observation of these mono-vacancies (MVs),…
Active polymer translocation through confined spaces is a key biological process underlying DNA transport through nuclear pores and actin filament dynamics in cell migration. Here, we use living polymer-like Tubifex tubifex worms as a model…
Soft robotics technologies have gained growing interest in recent years, which allows various applications from manufacturing to human-robot interaction. Pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM), a typical soft actuator, has been widely applied to…
This paper presents a dynamic constraint formulation to provide protective virtual fixtures of 3D anatomical structures from polygon mesh representations. The proposed approach can anisotropically limit the tool motion of surgical robots…
Active feedback cooling of levitated dielectric particles is a pivotal technique for creating ultrasensitive sensors and probing fundamental physics. Here we demonstrate phase-adaptive feedback cooling of silica nanoparticles optically…
Wearing comfort of apparel is highly dependent on moisture management and respective transport properties of the textiles. In today's used textiles, the water vapor transmission (WVT) depends primarily on the porosity and the wettability of…
Robotic weed flaming is a new and environmentally friendly approach to weed removal in the agricultural field. Using a mobile manipulator equipped with a flamethrower, we design a new system and algorithm to enable effective weed flaming,…
Soft robotic grasping has rapidly spread through the academic robotics community in recent years and pushed into industrial applications. At the same time, multimaterial 3D printing has become widely available, enabling the monolithic…
We study the dynamics of snap-through when viscoelastic effects are present. To gain analytical insight we analyse a modified form of the Mises truss, a single-degree-of-freedom structure, which features an `inverted' shape that snaps to a…