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The confluence of soft robotics and fluidic logic have sparked innovations in integrated robots with superior flexibility and potential machine intelligence. However, current fluidically driven soft robots suffer from either a large number…
The control of pneumatically driven soft robots typically requires electronics. Microcontrollers are connected to power electronics that switch valves and pumps on and off. As a recent alternative, fluidic control methods have been…
Existing fluidic soft logic gates for the control of soft robots either rely on extensive manual fabrication processes or expensive printing techniques. In our work, we explore Fused Deposition Modeling for creating fully 3D printed fluidic…
Although research studies in pneumatic soft robots develop rapidly, most pneumatic actuators are still controlled by rigid valves and conventional electronics. The existence of these rigid, electronic components sacrifices the compliance…
The vision of creating entirely-soft robots capable of performing complex tasks will be accomplished only when the controllers required for autonomous operation can be fully implemented on soft components. Despite recent advances in…
The current fabrication and assembly of fluidic circuits for soft robots relies heavily on manual processes; as the complexity of fluidic circuits increases, manual assembly becomes increasingly arduous, error-prone, and timeconsuming. We…
Tactile sensing plays a fundamental role in enabling robots to navigate dynamic and unstructured environments, particularly in applications such as delicate object manipulation, surface exploration, and human-robot interaction. In this…
In the quest for electrically-driven soft actuators, the focus has shifted away from liquid-gas phase transition, commonly associated with reduced strain rates and actuation delays, in favour of electrostatic and other electrothermal…
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…
A leading concept in soft robotics actuation, as well as in microfluidics applications such as valves in lab-on-a-chip devices, is applying pressurized flow in cavities embedded within elastic bodies. Generating complex deformation patterns…
Soft machines are poised to deliver significant real-world impact, with soft robotics emerging as a key sub-discipline. This field integrates biological inspiration, materials science, and embodied intelligence to create bio-robotic…
Soft underwater robots typically explore bioinspired designs at the expense of power efficiency when compared to traditional underwater robots, which limits their practical use in real-world applications. We leverage a fluidic closed-loop…
Soft valves serve to modulate and rectify flows in complex vasculatures across the tree of life, e.g. in the heart of every human reading this. Here we consider a minimal physical model of the heart mitral valve modeled as a flexible…
This paper presents a passive control method for multiple degrees of freedom in a soft pneumatic robot through the combination of flow resistor tubes with series inflatable actuators. We designed and developed these 3D printed resistors…
Developing soft circuits from individual soft logic gates poses a unique challenge: with increasing numbers of logic gates, the design and implementation of circuits leads to inefficiencies due to mathematically unoptimized circuits and…
Pumping fluids is fundamental to a wide range of industrial, environmental, and biomedical applications. Among various pumping mechanisms, peristaltic pumps enable efficient and safe fluid transport by deforming an elastic tube without…
This paper proposes a novel pneumatic soft robotic hand that incorporates a mechanism that can switch the airflow path using a single airflow control. The developed hand can control the finger motion and operate the surface friction…
Robotic legs have bimodal operations: swing phases when the leg needs to move quickly in the air (high-speed, low-force) and stance phases when the leg bears the weight of the system (low-speed, high-force). Sizing a traditional…
Pneumatic actuation benefits soft robotics by facilitating compliance, enabling large volume change, and concentrating actuator weight away from the end-effector. However, portability is compromised when pneumatic actuators are tethered to…
The one-to-one mapping of control inputs to actuator outputs results in elaborate routing architectures that limit how complex fluidic soft robot behaviours can currently become. Embodied intelligence can be used as a tool to counteract…