Related papers: SOFTMAP: Sim2Real Soft Robot Forward Modeling via …
Soft robot manipulators have the potential for deployment in delicate environments to perform complex manipulation tasks. However, existing obstacle detection and avoidance methods do not consider limits on the forces that manipulators may…
Impact-aware robotic manipulation benefits from an accurate map from ante-impact to post-impact velocity signals to support, e.g., motion planning and control. This work proposes an approach to generate and experimentally validate such…
Accurate shape reconstruction is essential for precise control and reliable operation of soft robots. Compared to sensor-based approaches, vision-based methods offer advantages in cost, simplicity, and ease of deployment. However, existing…
Soft robotic manipulators offer operational advantage due to their compliant and deformable structures. However, their inherently nonlinear dynamics presents substantial challenges. Traditional analytical methods often depend on simplifying…
Contrary to the stunning feats observed in birds of prey, aerial manipulation and grasping with flying robots still lack versatility and agility. Conventional approaches using rigid manipulators require precise positioning and are subject…
Object manipulation in robotics faces challenges due to diverse object shapes, sizes, and fragility. Gripper-based methods offer precision and low degrees of freedom (DOF) but the gripper limits the kind of objects to grasp. On the other…
Flexible robots may overcome some of the industry's major challenges, such as enabling intrinsically safe human-robot collaboration and achieving a higher payload-to-mass ratio. However, controlling flexible robots is complicated due to…
Fast, accurate, and generalizable simulations are a key enabler of modern advances in robot design and control. However, existing simulation frameworks in robotics either model rigid environments and mechanisms only, or if they include…
Thanks to their compliance and adaptability, soft robots can be deployed to perform tasks in constrained or complex environments. In these scenarios, spatial awareness of the surroundings and the ability to localize the robot within the…
This paper introduces a novel approach for modeling the dynamics of soft robots, utilizing a differentiable filter architecture. The proposed approach enables end-to-end training to learn system dynamics, noise characteristics, and temporal…
Haptic interfaces that can simultaneously modulate multiple physical properties remain a fundamental challenge in human-robot interaction. Existing systems typically allow the rendering of either geometric features or mechanical properties,…
Passive deformation due to compliance is a commonly used benefit of soft robots, providing opportunities to achieve robust actuation with few active degrees of freedom. Soft growing robots in particular have shown promise in navigation of…
Human grasps can be roughly categorized into two types: power grasps and precision grasps. Precision grasping enables tool use and is believed to have influenced human evolution. Today's multi-fingered robotic hands are effective in power…
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…
High-performance closed-loop control of truly soft continuum manipulators has remained elusive. Experimental demonstrations have largely relied on sufficiently stiff, piecewise architectures in which each actuated segment behaves as a…
Imagine a swarm of terrestrial robots that can explore an environment, and, upon completion of this task, reconfigure into a spherical ball and roll out. This dimensional change alters the dynamics of locomotion and can assist them to…
Soft robots are promising for manipulation tasks thanks to their compliance, safety, and high degree of freedom. However, the commonly used bidirectional continuum segment design means soft robotic manipulators only function in a limited…
Soft robots have been leveraged in considerable areas like surgery, rehabilitation, and bionics due to their softness, flexibility, and safety. However, it is challenging to produce two same soft robots even with the same mold and…
Learning-based 3D object reconstruction enables single- or few-shot estimation of 3D object models. For robotics, this holds the potential to allow model-based methods to rapidly adapt to novel objects and scenes. Existing 3D reconstruction…
Soft pneumatic actuators have seen applications in many soft robotic systems, and their pressure-driven nature presents unique challenges and opportunities for controlling their motion. In this work, we present a new concept: designing and…