7 accepted papers
Soft robots are theoretically well-suited to rescue and exploration applications where their flexibility allows for the traversal of highly cluttered environments. However, most existing mobile soft robots are not fast or powerful enough to effectively traverse three dimensional environments. In thi…
Snake robots offer a useful and unique mobility platform for search-and-rescue applications. However, existing prototypes made of rigid links and joints are hampered by a lack of flexibility that limits their utility in highly cluttered, maze-like environments, and their heavy weight limits their en
Soft pneumatic actuators enable robots to interact safely with complex environments, but often suffer from imprecise control and unpredictable dynamics. This letter addresses these challenges through the use of model reference adaptive control, which modulates the input to the plant to ensure that i
This paper presents an origami-inspired cable-driven continuum manipulator module that offers low-cost, low-volume deployment, light weight, and inherently safe human interaction and collaboration. Each module has a mass of around 110 g and integrates the actuation, sensing, and control sub-systems…
Soft robotics carries the promise of making robots as capable and adaptable as biological creatures, but this will not be possible without the ability to perform self-sensing and control with precision and repeatability. In this paper, we seek to address this need with the development of a new pneum
Soft pneumatic actuators can allow robotic manipulators to interact safely in complex environments in close proximity to humans, but work still needs to be done controlling them more effectively. We explore this area by introducing a 2-degree of freedom (DoF) universal joint module actuated by three
Soft pneumatic actuators provide many exciting properties, but controlling them without the use of bulky and expensive flow-control valves can be difficult and computationally expensive. We seek a solution to this problem by introducing an inexpensive and reliable muscle-like linear soft actuator us…