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While the animals' Fin-to-Limb evolution has been well-researched in biology, such morphological transformation remains under-adopted in the modern design of advanced robotic limbs. This paper investigates a novel class of overconstrained…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…
Sidewinding, a locomotion strategy characterized by the coordination of lateral and vertical body undulations, is frequently observed in rattlesnakes and has been successfully reconstructed by limbless robotic systems for effective movement…
Single locomotion robots often struggle to adapt in highly variable or uncertain environments, especially in emergencies. In this paper, a multi-modal deformable robot is introduced that can both fly and drive. Compatibility issues with…
A wide range of microorganisms, e.g. bacteria, propel themselves by rotation of soft helical tails, also known as flagella. Due to the small size of these organisms, viscous forces overwhelm inertial effects and the flow is at low Reynolds…
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…
If robots are to become ubiquitous, they will need to be able to adapt to complex and dynamic environments. Robots that can adapt their bodies while deployed might be flexible and robust enough to meet this challenge. Previous work on…
Elongate limbless robots have the potential to locomote through tightly packed spaces for applications such as search-and-rescue and industrial inspections. The capability to effectively and robustly maneuver elongate limbless robots is…
Modular soft robots combine the strengths of two traditionally separate areas of robotics. As modular robots, they can show robustness to individual failure and reconfigurability; as soft robots, they can deform and undergo large shape…
This research focuses on developing reinforcement learning approaches for the locomotion generation of small-size quadruped robots. The rat robot NeRmo is employed as the experimental platform. Due to the constrained volume, small-size…
Although wheeled robots have been predominant for planetary exploration, their geometry limits their capabilities when traveling over steep slopes, through rocky terrains, and in microgravity. Legged robots equipped with grippers are a…
Legged robots have significant potential to operate in highly unstructured environments. The design of locomotion control is, however, still challenging. Currently, controllers must be either manually designed for specific robots and tasks,…
Magnetic-responsive composites that consist of soft matrix embedded with hard-magnetic particles have recently been demonstrated as robust soft active materials for fast-transforming actuation. However, the deformation of the functional…
Bio-inspired multi-joint snake robots offer the advantages of terrain adaptability due to their limbless structure and high flexibility. However, a series of dozens of motor units in typical multiple-joint snake robots results in a heavy…
Soft robots have garnered significant attention due to their promising applications across various domains. A hallmark of these systems is their bilayer structure, where strain mismatch caused by differential expansion between layers…
Multimodal locomotion capability is an emerging topic in robotics field, and various novel mobile robots have been developed to enable the maneuvering in both terrestrial and aerial domains. Among these hybrid robots, several…
Modular microrobotics can potentially address many information-intensive microtasks in medicine, manufacturing and the environment. However, surface area has limited the natural powering, communication, functional integration, and…
Rigid-bodied robots often lack compliance needed to adapt to unstructured environments, while fully soft robots, though highly adaptable, struggle with scalability and load capacity. In nature, musculoskeletal systems balance strength and…
Compared to traditional rigid robotics, soft robotics has attracted increasing attention due to its advantages as compliance, safety, and low cost. As an essential part of soft robotics, the soft robotic gripper also shows its superior…
While undulatory swimming of elongate limbless robots has been extensively studied in open hydrodynamic environments, less research has been focused on limbless locomotion in complex, cluttered aquatic environments. Motivated by the concept…