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Navigating a large-scaled robot in unknown and cluttered height-constrained environments is challenging. Not only is a fast and reliable planning algorithm required to go around obstacles, the robot should also be able to change its…
Entanglements like vines and branches in natural settings or cords and pipes in human spaces prevent mobile robots from accessing many environments. Legged robots should be effective in these settings, and more so than wheeled or tracked…
The deployment of humanoid robots in unstructured, human-centric environments requires navigation capabilities that extend beyond simple locomotion to include robust perception, provable safety, and socially aware behavior. Current…
Concentric Tube Robots (CTRs) have been proposed to operate within the unstructured environment for minimally invasive surgeries. In this letter, we consider the operation scenario where the tubes travel inside the channels with a large…
Rather than traditional position control, impedance control is preferred to ensure the safe operation of industrial robots programmed from demonstrations. However, variable stiffness learning studies have focused on task performance rather…
Obtaining dynamic models of continuum soft robots is central to the analysis and control of soft robots, and researchers have devoted much attention to the challenge of proposing both data-driven and first-principle solutions. Both avenues…
Magnetic soft robots have attracted growing interest due to their unique advantages in terms of untethered actuation and excellent controllability. However, finding the required magnetization patterns or magnetic fields to achieve the…
Control strategies for robotic needle steering in soft tissues must account for complex interactions between the needle and the tissue to achieve accurate needle tip positioning. Recent findings show faster robotic command rate can improve…
There are many spaces inaccessible to humans where robots could help deliver sensors and equipment. Many of these spaces contain three-dimensional passageways and uneven terrain that pose challenges for robot design and control. Everting…
The bundling of flagella is known to create a "run" phase, where the bacteria moves in a nearly straight line rather than making changes in direction. Historically, mechanical explanations for the bundling phenomenon intrigued many…
Robot-assisted therapy can deliver high-dose, task-specific training after neurologic injury, but most systems act primarily at the limb level-engaging the impaired neural circuits only indirectly-which remains a key barrier to truly…
We extend the formulation of position-based rods to include elastic volumetric deformations. We achieve this by introducing an additional degree of freedom per vertex -- isotropic scale (and its velocity). Including scale enriches the space…
Controlling soft continuum robotic arms is challenging due to their hyper-redundancy and dexterity. In this paper we demonstrate, for the first time, closed-loop control of the configuration space variables of a soft robotic arm, composed…
Endowing continuum robots with compliance while it is interacting with the internal environment of the human body is essential to prevent damage to the robot and the surrounding tissues. Compared with passive compliance, active compliance…
Navigation is a fundamental capability for mobile robots. While the current trend is to use learning-based approaches to replace traditional geometry-based methods, existing end-to-end learning-based policies often struggle with 3D spatial…
Robots built from soft materials can alter their shape and size in a particular profile. This shape-changing ability could be extremely helpful for rescue robots and those operating in unknown terrains and environments. In changing shape,…
In this paper, we analyze the inverse dynamics and control of a bacteria-inspired uniflagellar robot in a fluid medium at low Reynolds number. Inspired by the mechanism behind the locomotion of flagellated bacteria, we consider a robot…
It is a challenging task for ground robots to autonomously navigate in harsh environments due to the presence of non-trivial obstacles and uneven terrain. This requires trajectory planning that balances safety and efficiency. The primary…
Spacecraft relative motion planning is concerned with the design and execution of maneuvers relative to a nominal target. These types of maneuvers are frequently utilized in missions such as rendezvous and docking, satellite inspection and…
Inspired by the embodied intelligence of biological creatures like the octopus, the soft robotic arm utilizes its highly flexible structure to perform various tasks in the complex environment. While the classic Cosserat rod theory…