Related papers: A Soft Robotic Demonstration in the Stratosphere
Liquid crystal elastomers contract along their director on heating and recover on cooling, offering great potential as actuators and artificial muscles. If a flat sheet is programmed with a spatially varying director pattern, it will…
This work assesses the hydrodynamic efficiency of Underwater Unmanned Vehicles (UUVs) equipped with soft morphing wings compared to conventional rigid wings. Unlike rigid wings, deformable counterparts can alter their aerodynamic properties…
We explore the locomotion of soft robots in granular medium (GM) resulting from the elastic deformation of slender rods. A low-cost, rapidly fabricable robot inspired by the physiological structure of bacteria is presented. It consists of a…
The complex behavior of highly deformable mechanical metamaterials can substantially enhance the performance of soft robots.
We propose a new robotic cover prototype that achieves thermal display while also being soft. We focus on the thermal cue because previous human studies have identified it as part of the touch pleasantness. The robotic cover surface can be…
Soft actuators have drawn significant attention from researchers with an inherently compliant design to address the safety issues in physical human-robot interactions. However, they are also vulnerable and pose new challenges in the design,…
Change in the interatomic spacing of a two-atom system under tension and compression has been modelled by the elastic deformation of atoms. The critical elastic strain of atoms before separation or cracking from tension was estimated by the…
To design a general-purpose assembly robot system that can handle objects of various shapes, we propose a soft jig that fits to the shapes of assembly parts. The functionality of the soft jig is based on a jamming gripper developed in the…
Soft robots, in contrast to their rigid counter parts, have infinite degrees of freedom that are coupled with their interaction with the environment. We consider the locomotion of an untethered robot, in the granular medium, comprised of…
Electrowetting is a commonly used tool to manipulate sessile drops on hydrophobic surfaces. By applying an external voltage over a liquid and a dielectric-coated surface, one achieves a reduction of the macroscopic contact angles for…
Current micro nanomechanical system are usually based on rigid crystalline semiconductors that normally have high quality factors but lack adaptive responses to variable frequencies, a capability ubiquitous for communications in the…
Flying robots are usually rather delicate and require protective enclosures when facing the risk of collision, while high complexity and reduced payload are recurrent problems with collision-resilient flying robots. Inspired by arthropods'…
Many researchers have identified robotics as a potential solution to the aging population faced by many developed and developing countries. If so, how should we address the cognitive acceptance and ambient control of elderly assistive…
The design of physical compliance -- its location, degree, and structure -- affects robot performance and robustness in contact-rich tasks. While compliance is often used in the robot's joints, flange, or end-effector, this paper proposes…
Variable stiffness actuators undergo lower peak force in contacts compared to their rigid counterparts, and are thus safer for human-robot interaction. Furthermore, they can store energy in their elastic element and can release it later to…
Design of robots at the small scale is a trial-and-error based process, which is costly and time-consuming. There are few dynamic simulation tools available to accurately predict the motion or performance of untethered microrobots as they…
Soft materials capable of large inelastic deformation play an essential role in high-performance nacre-inspired architectured materials with a combination of stiffness, strength and toughness. The rigid "building blocks" made from glass or…
Soft pneumatic actuators are widely used in soft robotics because they can produce large motions while remaining compliant enough to interact safely with objects, environments, and the human body. However, their performance is not solely…
In nature, a variety of limbless locomotion patterns flourish from the small or basic life form (Escherichia coli, the amoeba, etc.) to the large or intelligent creatures (e.g., slugs, starfishes, earthworms, octopuses, jellyfishes, and…
Inspired by the snap-through action of a steel hairclip, we propose a design method for in-plane prestressed mechanisms that exhibit biomimetic morphing and high locomotion performance. Compliant bistable flapping mechanisms are fabricated…