Related papers: Dual-Variable Force Characterisation method for Hu…
Contact detection for continuum and soft robots has been limited in past works to statics or kinematics-based methods with assumed circular bending curvature or known bending profiles. In this paper, we adapt the generalized momentum…
Roboticists have been seeking to address this situation in recent years through the use of soft robots. Unfortunately, identifying appropriate models for the complete analysis and investigation of soft robots for design and control purposes…
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…
To design trustworthy robots, we need to understand the impact factors of trust: people's attitudes, experience, and characteristics; the robot's physical design, reliability, and performance; a task's specification and the circumstances…
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…
Collaborative robots (cobots) are machines designed to work safely alongside people in human-centric environments. Providing cobots with the ability to quickly infer the inertial parameters of manipulated objects will improve their…
Robotic manipulation of cloth is a challenging task due to the high dimensionality of the configuration space and the complexity of dynamics affected by various material properties. The effect of complex dynamics is even more pronounced in…
Verifying the correct behavior of robots in contact tasks is challenging due to model uncertainties associated with contacts. Standard methods for testing often fall short since all (uncountable many) solutions cannot be obtained. Instead,…
Robots which interact with the physical world will benefit from a fine-grained tactile understanding of objects and surfaces. Additionally, for certain tasks, robots may need to know the haptic properties of an object before touching it. To…
Soft robots have been leveraged in considerable areas like surgery, rehabilitation, and bionics due to their softness, flexibility, and safety. However, it is challenging to produce two same soft robots even with the same mold and…
Soft lubricated contacts exhibit complex interfacial behaviours governed by the coupled effects of multiscale surface roughness and non-linear fluid-solid interactions. Accurately capturing this interplay across thin-film flows is…
This article reviews contemporary methods for integrating force, including both proprioception and tactile sensing, in robot manipulation policy learning. We conduct a comparative analysis on various approaches for sensing force, data…
Designing soft robots poses considerable challenges: automated design approaches may be particularly appealing in this field, as they promise to optimize complex multi-material machines with very little or no human intervention.…
In this project, we focus on human-robot interaction in caregiving scenarios like bathing, where physical contact is inevitable and necessary for proper task execution because force must be applied to the skin. Using finite element…
Many tasks, particularly those involving interaction with the environment, are characterized by high variability, making robotic autonomy difficult. One flexible solution is to introduce the input of a human with superior experience and…
We present a tactile sensing method enabled by the mechanical compliance of soft robots; an externally attachable photoreflective module reads surface deformation of silicone skin to estimate contact force without embedding tactile…
Deformable object manipulation is a classical and challenging research area in robotics. Compared with rigid object manipulation, this problem is more complex due to the deformation properties including elastic, plastic, and elastoplastic…
By learning Variable Impedance Control policy, robot assistants can intelligently adapt their manipulation compliance to ensure both safe interaction and proper task completion when operating in human-robot interaction environments. In this…
The deformable and continuum nature of soft robots promises versatility and adaptability. However, control of modular, multi-limbed soft robots for terrestrial locomotion is challenging due to the complex robot structure, actuator mechanics…
Soft electronic skins are one of the means to turn an industrial manipulator into a collaborative robot. For manipulators that are already fit for physical human-robot collaboration, soft skins can make them safer. In this work, we study…