35 accepted papers
The Digital Roads project at Cambridge University is leveraging digitalisation, automation, and low-carbon materials to build an Automated Maintenance Plant (AMP) for UK road networks, aimed at minimising repair times to reduce congestion, improving safety, and contributing to the UK’s net-zero goal
We present a decentralized, agent agnostic, and safety-aware control framework for human–robot collaboration based on Virtual Model Control (VMC). In our approach, both humans and robots are embedded in the same virtual-component-shaped workspace, where motion is the result of the interaction with v…
Tactile sensing is essential for enabling dexterous robotic manipulation, yet estimating contact states such as location and force from high-dimensional sensor measurements remains challenging due to noise and complex nonlinear mappings between raw signals and physical interaction states. In this wo…
Soil is a vital resource for various industries, including agriculture, engineering, and manufacturing, where accurate in-situ classification is essential for a wide range of applications. Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) enables real-time soil classification by capturing complex impedance data
Adapting reinforcement learning (RL) policies to various robot body configurations is a significant challenge for creating flexible autonomous systems. This study presents a novel framework that integrates Reservoir Computing (RC) with the First-Order Reduced and Controlled Error (FORCE) learning ru
Torque-restricted control remains a significant challenge in robotics, often necessitating precise modeling or large amounts of data for effective controller design. To address this problem, we introduce a novel training method that utilizes a Reservoir Computing (RC) framework to serve as a model-f
Fast-legged humanoid robots are transforming industries from manufacturing to medical robotics, with the global market projected to grow from $0.67 billion in 2024 to $2.27 billion by 2033 at a 14.3% CAGR. Despite rapid advancements, challenges remain in navigating complex terrains, especially uneve
Most existing anthropomorphic robotic fingers are either too stiff to offer compliance, or too soft to provide postural stability. Yet human subjects tend to stiffen their finger when producing fingertip forces and lower their joint stiffness when grasping objects. Variable joint stiffness is theref
Soft robotics has emerged as the standard solution for grasping deformable objects, and has proven invaluable for mobile robotic exploration in extreme environments. However, despite this growth, there are no widely adopted computational design tools that produce quality, manufacturable designs. To…
Soft robotics, an emerging domain in modern robotics, introduces innovative possibilities alongside challenges in controllability, particularly with multi-degree inflatable actuators. We present a novel manipulation method using underactuated soft fingers that addresses these challenges by harnessin…
Most braille-reading robotic sensors employ a discrete letter-by-letter reading strategy, despite the higher potential speeds of a biomimetic sliding approach. We propose a complete pipeline for continuous braille reading: frames are dynamically collected with a vision-based tactile sensor; an autoe
Virtual Model Control (VMC) is an approach to design a controller for force-controlled robots in complex uncertain environments. While this method was primarily investigated for legged robot locomotion in the past, it can be more generally applicable to other types of robotic systems. This paper inv…
As soft robotic systems become increasingly complex, there is a need to develop sensory systems which can provide rich state information to the robot for feedback control. Multi-axis force sensing and control is one of the less explored problems in this domain. There are numerous challenges in the d…
Soft robotic grippers are becoming increasingly popular for agricultural and logistics automation. Their passive conformability enables them to adapt to varying product shapes and sizes, providing stable large-area grasps. This work presents a novel methodology for combining soft robotic grippers wi…
Soft sensorised skins are essential for improving robotic manipulation capabilities towards that of humans. Integration of sensors into existing robotic hands is challenging due to rigidity of components, low packing density or poor sensor response. We propose a sensorised skin, based-on barometric…
Soft grippers have the potential to solve many existing manipulation challenges, particularly in agile industry applications. However, existing soft grippers are often limited in the range of objects they can pick, or by cluttered environments. We present a design inspired by the nose and fingers at…
The mechanical properties of a sensor strongly affect its tactile sensing capabilities. The role of morphology and stiffness on the quality of the tactile data has already been the subject of several studies, which focus mainly on static sensor designs and design methodologies. However, static desig
The ability to 3D print soft materials with integrated strain sensors enables significant flexibility for the design and fabrication of soft robots. Hydrogels provide an interesting alternative to traditional soft robot materials, allowing for more varied fabrication techniques. In this work, we inv
The sense of taste is fundamental to a human chef’s ability to cook tasty food. To develop robots that can demonstrate human-like cooking, robots need to be equipped with a sense of taste and enabled to use this perception capability to improve or understand the food which they are cooking. We propo…
A bio-inspired way to model locomotion is using a network of coupled phase oscillators to create a Central Pattern Generator (CPG). The recently developed feedback control method tegotae includes exteroceptive force feedback into the governing phase update equations, leading to gait limit cycles. Ho…
Physicians use pain expressions shown in a patient's face to regulate their palpation methods during physical examination. Training to interpret patients’ facial expressions with different genders and ethnicities still remains a challenge, taking novices a long time to learn through experience. This
Soft robotic sensors have been limited in their applications due to their highly nonlinear time variant behavior. Current studies are either looking into techniques to improve the mechano-electrical properties of these sensors or into modelling algorithms that account for the history of each sensor.
Mechanical self-stability is often useful for controlling systems in uncertain and unstructured environments because it can regulate processes without explicit state observation or feedback computation. However, the performance of such systems is often not optimised, which begs the question how thei…
With advances in the field of robotic manipulation, sensing and machine learning, robotic chefs are expected to become prevalent in our kitchens and restaurants. Robotic chefs are envisioned to replicate human skills in order to reduce the burden of the cooking process. However, the potential of rob
Continuum body structures provide unique opportunities for soft robotics, with the infinite degrees of freedom enabling unconstrained and highly adaptive exploration and manipulation. However, the infinite degrees of freedom of continuum bodies makes sensing (both intrinsically and extrinsically) ch
To match the ever increasing standards of fresh products, and the need to reduce waste, we devise an alternative to the destructive and highly variable fruit ripeness estimation by a penetrometer. We propose a fully automatic method to assess the ripeness of mango which is non-destructive, allows th…
During abdominal palpation diagnosis, a medical practitioner would change the stiffness of their fingers in order to improve the detection of hard nodules or abnormalities in soft tissue to maximize the haptic information gain via tendons. Our recent experiments using a controllable stiffness roboti
Prefabrication of structures is currently used in a limited capacity, due to the lack of flexibility, despite the potential cost and speed advantages. Autonomous flexible reassembly enables structures to be developed which can be continuously and iteratively dis-assembled and re-assembled providing…
Robotic technologies are being increasingly applied to agriculture, in particular to harvesting. Some types of produce such as iceberg lettuce require additional processing after harvesting in order to satisfy the needs of the end-user or customer. Lettuce must have its outer leaves removed, a task
When developing a robot, design iterations in the physical world are necessary, even though they are often costly and not systematic. Here, we present an automated iterative design process without using modeling or simulation, which we refer to as “model-free design optimization” based on Bayesian o
Morphological computation is a concept relevant to robots made of soft and elastic materials. It states that robot's rich dynamics can be exploited to generate desirable behaviors, which can be altered when their morphology is adapted accordingly. This paper presents a low-cost robot made of elastic…
There is an increasing interest in the use of soft technologies for robotic application, however, the lack of advanced sensory motor capabilities is currently a significant limitation. Sensing of soft robots, in particular, is still not fully understood and methods by which a large deformable contin…
The realization and utilization of multimodal locomotion to enable robots to accomplish useful tasks is a significantly challenging problem in robotics. Related to the challenge, it is crucial to notice that the locomotion dynamics of the robots is a result of interactions between a particular contr…
For legged devices, their ability of carrying payload is a necessity for a wide range of tasks. In this paper, we present a new approach of carrying payload by using a parallel elastic mechanism, which is able to carry payloads of at least 3 times of its bodyweight. Although the robot has no sensory…