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Overcoming robotics challenges in the real world requires resilient control systems capable of handling a multitude of environments and unforeseen events. Evolutionary optimization using simulations is a promising way to automatically…
Soft actuators have drawn significant attention from researchers with an inherently compliant design to address the safety issues in physical human-robot interactions. However, they are also vulnerable and pose new challenges in the design,…
Little research into tactile feet has been done for walking robots despite the benefits such feedback could give when walking on uneven terrain. This paper describes the development of a simple, robust and inexpensive tactile foot for…
Under-actuated compliant robotic systems offer a promising approach to mitigating actuation and control challenges by harnessing pre-designed, embodied dynamic behaviors. This paper presents Flix-Walker, a novel, untethered,…
Controllable character image animation has a wide range of applications. Although existing studies have consistently improved performance, challenges persist in the field of character image animation, particularly concerning stability in…
As robots enter human environments, they will be expected to accomplish a tremendous range of tasks. It is not feasible for robot designers to pre-program these behaviors or know them in advance, so one way to address this is through…
In this paper, we explore how techniques from soft robotics can help create a new form of robot expression. We present Sprout, a soft expressive robot that conveys its internal states by changing its body shape. Sprout can extend, bend,…
Manipulating unseen objects is challenging without a 3D representation, as objects generally have occluded surfaces. This requires physical interaction with objects to build their internal representations. This paper presents an approach…
This paper addresses the challenge of reconstructing an animatable human model from a multi-view video. Some recent works have proposed to decompose a non-rigidly deforming scene into a canonical neural radiance field and a set of…
Legged robots have the potential to become vital in maintenance, home support, and exploration scenarios. In order to interact with and manipulate their environments, most legged robots are equipped with a dedicated robot arm, which means…
Navigation and motion control of a robot to a destination are tasks that have historically been performed with the assumption that contact with the environment is harmful. This makes sense for rigid-bodied robots where obstacle collisions…
Having the ability to estimate an object's properties through interaction will enable robots to manipulate novel objects. Object's dynamics, specifically the friction and inertial parameters have only been estimated in a lab environment…
Achieving highly dynamic behaviors on humanoid robots, such as running, requires controllers that are both robust and precise, and hence difficult to design. Classical control methods offer valuable insight into how such systems can…
Crawling is a common locomotion mechanism in soft robots and nonskeletal animals. In this work we propose modeling soft-robotic legged locomotion by approximating it with an equivalent articulated robot with elastic joints. For concreteness…
Wearable and legged robot designers face multiple challenges when choosing actuation. Traditional fully actuated designs using electric motors are multifunctional but oversized and inefficient for bearing conservative loads and for being…
Mimicking realistic dynamics in 3D garment animations is a challenging task due to the complex nature of multi-layered garments and the variety of outer forces involved. Existing approaches mostly focus on single-layered garments driven by…
In industrial applications, complex tasks require human collaboration since the robot doesn't have enough dexterity. However, the robots are still implemented as tools and not as collaborative intelligent systems. To ensure safety in the…
This study presents a comparative framework for evaluating emotional engagement with textile soft robots and their augmented-reality (AR) counterparts. Four robotic sculptures were developed, each embodying nature-inspired dynamic behaviors…
In contrast with the diversity of materials found in nature, most robots are designed with some combination of aluminum, stainless steel, and 3D-printed filament. Additionally, robotic systems are typically assumed to follow basic…
We present an approach for achieving a natural, efficient gait on bipedal robots using straightened legs and toe-off. Our algorithm avoids complex height planning by allowing a whole-body controller to determine the straightest possible leg…