Related papers: Supercritical Snapping and Controlled Launching vi…
Latch-mediated Spring Actuation (LaMSA) is a mechanism found in nature, employed by organisms that generate the highest levels of power density through repeatable, rapid energy release. While LaMSA has been used in engineered systems like…
In nature, different species of smaller animals produce ultra-fast movements to aid in their locomotion or protect themselves against predators. These ultra-fast impulsive motions are possible, as often times, there exist a small latch in…
Many small animals, particularly insects, use power-amplification to generate rapid motions, such as jumping, that would otherwise be impossible given the standard power density of muscle. A common framework for understanding this power…
Underwater robotics has advanced significantly over recent decades. however, the development of miniaturized underwater robots remains limited by low energy densities of traditional power sources. Nature offers compelling…
Compliance in actuation has been exploited to generate highly dynamic maneuvers such as throwing that take advantage of the potential energy stored in joint springs. However, the energy storage and release could not be well-timed yet. On…
Grip, walk, crawl, and jump. Soft robots are integrated functional structures composed of compliant mechanisms, whose activity spans various industrial applications such as surgery, healthcare, surveillance, and even planetary exploration.…
Elastic actuation taps into elastic elements' energy storage for dynamic motions beyond rigid actuation. While Series Elastic Actuators (SEA) and Variable Stiffness Actuators (VSA) are highly sophisticated, they do not fully provide control…
Reconfigurable robots refer to a category of robots that their components (individual joints and links) can be assembled in multiple configurations and geometries. Most of existing latching mechanisms are based on physical tools such as…
Soft robotic actuators are safe and adaptable devices with inherent compliance, which makes them attractive for manipulating delicate and complex objects. Researchers have integrated stiff materials into soft actuators to increase their…
Legged robots offer several advantages when navigating unstructured environments, but they often fall short of the efficiency achieved by wheeled robots. One promising strategy to improve their energy economy is to leverage their natural…
Interlayer coupling in two-dimensional (2D) layered nanomaterials can provide us novel strategies to evoke their superior properties, such as the exotic flat bands and unconventional superconductivity of twisted layers, the formation of…
Rotating the clamped ends of a buckled elastica induces a snap-through instability. Predicting the limit point and determining the equilibria at the start and end of the snap are routine computations in the quasi-static setting. The…
Snapping instabilities in soft structures offer a powerful pathway to achieve rapid and energy-efficient actuation. In this study, an eccentric dome-shaped snapping actuator is developed to generate controllable asymmetric motion through…
Shell buckling is central in many biological structures and advanced functional materials, even if, traditionally, this elastic instability has been regarded as a catastrophic phenomenon to be avoided for engineering structures. Either way,…
Snapping beams enable rapid geometric transitions through nonlinear instability, offering an efficient means of generating motion in soft robotic systems. In this study, a tendon-driven mechanism consisting of spiral-based metabeams was…
Lattice-like cellular materials, with their unique combination of lightweight, high strength, and good deformability, are promising for engineering applications. This paper investigates the energy-absorbing properties of four truss-lattice…
Natural systems integrate the work of many sub-units (cells) toward a large-scale unified goal (morphological and behavioral), which can counteract the effects of unexpected experiences, damage, or simply changes in tasks demands. In this…
Animals run robustly in diverse terrain. This locomotion robustness is puzzling because axon conduction velocity is limited to a few ten meters per second. If reflex loops deliver sensory information with significant delays, one would…
Modulating the stiffness of soft actuators is crucial for improving the efficiency of interaction with the environment. However, current stiffness modulation mechanisms are hard to achieve high lateral stiffness and a wide range of bending…
Architected materials that exploit buckling instabilities to reversibly trap energy have been shown to be effective for impact protection. The energy-absorbing capabilities of these architected materials can be enhanced further by…