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Recent advances in robotics have been largely driven by imitation learning, which depends critically on large-scale, high-quality demonstration data. However, collecting such data remains a significant challenge-particularly for mobile…
Soft robots offer unmatched adaptability and safety in unstructured environments, yet their compliant, high-dimensional, and nonlinear dynamics make modeling for control notoriously difficult. Existing data-driven approaches often fail to…
Recent advancements in soft actuators have enabled soft continuum swimming robots to achieve higher efficiency and more closely mimic the behaviors of real marine animals. However, optimizing the design and control of these soft continuum…
Soft underwater robots typically explore bioinspired designs at the expense of power efficiency when compared to traditional underwater robots, which limits their practical use in real-world applications. We leverage a fluidic closed-loop…
Precise kinematic modeling is critical in calibration and controller design for soft robots, yet remains a challenging issue due to their highly nonlinear and complex behaviors. To tackle the issue, numerous data-driven machine learning…
The aim of this study is to develop surrogate models for quick, accurate prediction of thrust forces generated through flapping fin propulsion for given operating conditions and fin geometries. Different network architectures and…
Accurately modeling friction in robotics remains a core challenge, as robotics simulators like MuJoCo and PyBullet use simplified friction models or heuristics to balance computational efficiency with accuracy, where these simplifications…
We present a methodology for fast prototyping of morphologies and controllers for robot locomotion. Going beyond simulation-based approaches, we argue that the form and function of a robot, as well as their interplay with real-world…
Humans manipulate various kinds of fluids in their everyday life: creating latte art, scooping floating objects from water, rolling an ice cream cone, etc. Using robots to augment or replace human labors in these daily settings remain as a…
Clean energy from oceans and rivers is becoming a reality with the development of new technologies like tidal and instream turbines that generate electricity from naturally flowing water. These new technologies are being monitored for…
Underwater optical images inevitably suffer from various degradation factors such as blurring, low contrast, and color distortion, which hinder the accuracy of object detection tasks. Due to the lack of paired underwater/clean images, most…
A new fluid-driven soft robot hand in this study uses the idea of the bionics and has the anthropomorphic form, which is oriented to the flexible grasp function. The soft robot hand is composed of a new kind of multi-freedom soft finger and…
Magnetic soft continuum robots (MSCRs) have emerged as a promising technology for minimally invasive interventions, offering enhanced dexterity and remote-controlled navigation in confined lumens. Unlike conventional guidewires with…
Animal behavior reflects interactions between the nervous system, body, and environment. Therefore, biomechanics and environmental context must be considered to understand algorithms for behavioral control. Neuromechanical digital twins,…
The deformable and continuum nature of soft robots promises versatility and adaptability. However, control of modular, multi-limbed soft robots for terrestrial locomotion is challenging due to the complex robot structure, actuator mechanics…
Transferring heavy payloads in maritime settings relies on efficient crane operation, limited by hazardous double-pendulum payload sway. This sway motion is further exacerbated in offshore environments by external perturbations from wind…
Thanks to recent advancements in the development of inexpensive, high-resolution tactile sensors, touch sensing has become popular in contact-rich robotic manipulation tasks. With the surge of data-driven methods and their requirement for…
Underwater vehicles have seen significant development over the past seventy years. However, bio-inspired propulsion robots are still in their early stages and require greater interdisciplinary collaboration between biologists and…
To understand the governing mechanisms of bio-inspired swimming has always been challenging due to intense interactions between the flexible bodies of natural aquatic species and water around them. In this paper, we employ advanced modal…
It is challenging to perform system identification on soft robots due to their underactuated, high-dimensional dynamics. In this work, we present a data-driven modeling framework, based on geometric mechanics (also known as gauge theory)…