相关论文: When Being Soft Makes You Tough: A Collision-Resil…
We describe our experience teaching an intensive capstone course in which pairs of students build the hardware and software for a remote-controller quad-rotor aircraft (i.e., a quadcopter or "drone") from scratch in one 10-week quarter. The…
The inherent challenges of robotic underwater exploration, such as hydrodynamic effects, the complexity of dynamic coupling, and the necessity for sensitive interaction with marine life, call for the adoption of soft robotic approaches in…
Machines designed for operation in Space, as well as other extreme environments, need to be both resilient and adaptable when mission parameters change. Soft robots offer advantages in adaptability, but most lack resilience to the pressure…
One of the challenges faced by Autonomous Aerial Vehicles is reliable navigation through urban environments. Factors like reduction in precision of Global Positioning System (GPS), narrow spaces and dynamically moving obstacles make the…
This work introduces a novel approach for Titan exploration based on soft morphing aerial robots leveraging the use of flexible adaptive materials. The controlled deformation of the multirotor arms, actuated by a combination of a pneumatic…
We developed a new class of soft locomotive robots that can self-assemble into a preprogrammed configuration and vary their stiffness afterward in a highly integrated, compact body using contracting-cord particle jamming (CCPJ). We…
How to endow aerial robots with the ability to operate in close proximity remains an open problem. The core challenges lie in the propulsion system's dual-task requirement: generating manipulation forces while simultaneously counteracting…
This work provides a complete framework for the simulation, co-optimization, and sim-to-real transfer of the design and control of soft legged robots. The compliance of soft robots provides a form of "mechanical intelligence" -- the ability…
We introduce collision-resilient aerial vehicles with icosahedron tensegrity structures, capable of surviving high-speed impacts and resuming operations post-collision. We present a model-based design approach, which guides the selection of…
In this paper, we focus on non-conservative collision avoidance between robots and obstacles with control affine dynamics and convex shapes. System safety is defined using the minimum distance between the safe regions associated with robots…
Soft robots achieve functionality through tight coupling among geometry, material composition, and actuation. As a result, effective design optimization requires these three aspects to be considered jointly rather than in isolation. This…
Biological evidence shows that animals are capable of evading eminent collision without using depth information, relying solely on looming stimuli. In robotics, collision avoidance among uncooperative vehicles requires measurement of…
Although quadrotors, and aerial robots in general, are inherently active agents, their perceptual capabilities in literature so far have been mostly passive in nature. Researchers and practitioners today use traditional computer vision…
Soft robotics has emerged as a promising technology that holds great potential for various application areas. This is due to soft materials unique properties, including flexibility, safety, and shock absorption, among others. Despite many…
Soft robots offer more flexibility, compliance, and adaptability than traditional rigid robots. They are also typically lighter and cheaper to manufacture. However, their use in real-world applications is limited due to modeling challenges…
The significant components of any successful autonomous flight system are task completion and collision avoidance. Most deep learning algorithms successfully execute these aspects under the environment and conditions they are trained.…
We introduce SplitFlyer--a novel quadcopter with an ability to disassemble into two self-contained bicopters through human assistance. As a subunit, the bicopter is a severely underactuated aerial vehicle equipped with only two propellers.…
Limbless creatures can crawl on flat surfaces by deforming their bodies and interacting with asperities on the ground, offering a biological blueprint for designing efficient limbless robots. Inspired by this natural locomotion, we present…
Soft robots are inherently compliant and have a strong potential to realize human-friendly and safe robots. Despite continued research highlighting the potential of soft robots, they remain largely confined to laboratory settings. In this…
Both the design and control of a robot play equally important roles in its task performance. However, while optimal control is well studied in the machine learning and robotics community, less attention is placed on finding the optimal…