Related papers: Simple Models, Real Swimming: Digital Twins for Te…

This work focuses on the main challenges and problems in developing a virtual oceanic environment reproducing real experiments using Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) digital twins. We introduce the key features for building virtual worlds,…

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…

Accurate and adaptive dynamic models are critical for underwater vehicle-manipulator systems where hydrodynamic effects induce time-varying parameters. This paper introduces a novel uncertainty-aware adaptive dynamics model framework that…

Tendon-driven continuum robots offer intrinsically safe and contact-rich interactions owing to their kinematic redundancy and structural compliance. However, their perception often depends on external sensors, which increase hardware…

We develop a deep reinforcement learning method for training a jellyfish-like swimmer to effectively track a moving target in a two-dimensional flow. This swimmer is a flexible object equipped with a muscle model based on torsional springs.…

In this paper we present the study of the mathematical model of a real life joint used in an underwater robotic fish. Fluid-structure interaction is utterly simplified and the motion of the joint is approximated by D\"uffing's equation. We…

Tensegrity robots, composed of rigid rods and flexible cables, are difficult to accurately model and control given the presence of complex dynamics and high number of DoFs. Differentiable physics engines have been recently proposed as a…

This study presents a novel framework for precise force control of fin-actuated underwater robots by integrating a deep neural network (DNN)-based surrogate model with reinforcement learning (RL). To address the complex interactions with…

Underwater robotic manipulation remains challenging because lighting variation, color attenuation, scattering, and reduced visibility can severely degrade visuomotor policies. We present Bi-AQUA, the first underwater bilateral control-based…

Exploring bodies of water on their surface allows robots to efficiently communicate and harvest energy from the sun. On the water surface, however, robots often face highly unstructured environments, cluttered with plant matter, animals,…

Learning effective visuomotor policies for robots purely from data is challenging, but also appealing since a learning-based system should not require manual tuning or calibration. In the case of a robot operating in a real environment the…

A biomorphic propulsion systemfor underwater robotic fish is presented. The system is based on a combination of an elastic chord with a tail fin fixed on it. The tail fin is connected to servomotor by two symmetric movable thrusts…

Soft robots have attracted much attention in recent years owing to their high adaptability. Long articulated soft robots enable diverse operations, and tip-extending robots that navigate their environment through growth are highly effective…

Aquatic locomotion is a classic fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problem of interest to biologists and engineers. Solving the fully coupled FSI equations for incompressible Navier-Stokes and finite elasticity is computationally expensive.…

A digital twin is a surrogate model that has the main feature to mirror the original process behavior. Associating the dynamical process with a digital twin model of reduced complexity has the significant advantage to map the dynamics with…

We present Dojo, a differentiable physics engine for robotics that prioritizes stable simulation, accurate contact physics, and differentiability with respect to states, actions, and system parameters. Dojo models hard contact and friction…

We present OpenFish: an open source soft robotic fish which is optimized for speed and efficiency. The soft robotic fish uses a combination of an active and passive tail segment to accurately mimic the thunniform swimming mode. Through the…

Bioinspired snake robotics has been a highly active area of research over the years and resulted in many prototypes. Much of these prototypes takes the form of serially jointed-rigid bodies. The emergence of soft robotics contributed to a…

Current embodied reasoning agents struggle to plan for long-horizon tasks that require to physically interact with the world to obtain the necessary information (e.g. 'sort the objects from lightest to heaviest'). The improvement of the…

Tendon drives paired with soft muscle actuation enable faster and safer robots while potentially accelerating skill acquisition. Still, these systems are rarely used in practice due to inherent nonlinearities, friction, and hysteresis,…