Related papers: Surface-based Manipulation Using Tunable Compliant…

Human softness perception in haptics has mainly been studied using mechanically homogeneous objects, despite the fact that many real-world objects exhibit heterogeneous layered structures with nonuniform stiffness. This study examined how…

Human skin can accurately sense the self-decoupled normal and shear forces when in contact with objects of different sizes. Although there exist many soft and conformable tactile sensors on robotic applications able to decouple the normal…

Many objects commonly found in household and industrial environments are represented by cylindrical and cubic shapes. Thus, it is available for robots to manipulate them through the real-time detection of elliptic and rectangle shape…

Manipulation of thin materials is critical for many everyday tasks and remains a significant challenge for robots. While existing research has made strides in tasks like material smoothing and folding, many studies struggle with common…

The Finite Element Method (FEM) is a powerful modeling tool for predicting soft robots' behavior, but its computation time can limit practical applications. In this paper, a learning-based approach based on condensation of the FEM model is…

Distributed Manipulator Systems, composed of arrays of robotic actuators necessitate dense actuator arrays to effectively manipulate small objects. This paper presents a system composed of modular 3-DoF robotic tiles interconnected by a…

Many robotic surgical systems have been developed with micro-sized forceps for tissue manipulation. However, these systems often lack force sensing at the tool side and the manipulation forces are roughly estimated and controlled relying on…

While its biological significance is well-documented, its application in soft robotics, particularly for the transport of fragile and irregularly shaped objects, remains underexplored. This study presents a modular soft robotic actuator…

Soft robots are notoriously hard to control. This is partly due to the scarcity of models able to capture their complex continuum mechanics, resulting in a lack of control methodologies that take full advantage of body compliance. Currently…

This paper introduces a pair of low-cost, light-weight and compliant force-sensing gripping pads used for manipulating box-like objects with smaller-sized humanoid robots. These pads measure normal gripping forces and center of pressure…

The morphology of a slender soft-robot can be modified by sensing its shape via sensors and exerting moments via actuators embedded along its body. The actuating moments required to morph these soft-robots to a desired shape are often…

Assembling lattices from discrete building blocks enables the composition of large, heterogeneous, and easily reconfigurable objects with desirable mass-to-stiffness ratios. This type of building system may also be referred to as a digital…

Continuum robots have been widely adopted in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RMIS) because of their compact size and high flexibility. However, their proprioceptive capabilities remain limited, particularly in narrow lumens,…

Robotic fingers made of soft material and compliant structures usually lead to superior adaptation when interacting with the unstructured physical environment. In this paper, we present an embedded sensing solution using optical fibers for…

We introduce DIFFTACTILE, a physics-based differentiable tactile simulation system designed to enhance robotic manipulation with dense and physically accurate tactile feedback. In contrast to prior tactile simulators which primarily focus…

Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…

Smart surfaces that reversibly change the interfacial friction coefficients in response to external stimuli enable a wide range of applications, such as grips, seals, brake pads, packaging films, and fabrics. Here a new concept of such a…

Tactile sensing is a crucial perception mode for robots and human amputees in need of controlling a prosthetic device. Today robotic and prosthetic systems are still missing the important feature of accurate tactile sensing. This lack is…

3D-printed artificial skins are a scalable approach to whole-body tactile and proximity coverage, but prior implementations have been limited to unimodal sensing and rigid materials. To improve the practical usability of 3D-printed…

Direct physical guidance is a natural means of teaching and interacting with robots, and robotic skins make a key contribution by enabling sensitive contact sensing and localization. This paper presents a tactile-proprioceptive sensor…