12 accepted papers
Plants respond physically to external stimuli (such as light and electricity), and these stimuli-responsive physical behaviors facilitate plants being used as actuators for robotic systems. However, achieving robot mobility through plants remains challenging. Moreover, there is a lack of quantitativ
Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) pumps made from flexible or stretchable materials are a promising pumping element for fluidically driven soft robots. In most soft robotic systems, EHD pumps are used separately or connected in series with their target components, such as actuators, which can limit design f
This paper presents a soft electrohydraulic actuator integrated with electrically controlled adhesion. Soft electrohydraulic actuators are a type of soft actuation technology known for their versatility and promising features, enabling the creation of diverse soft robotic systems. Integrating electr
Soft robotics, a field dedicated to the development of robots using flexible and compliant materials, has undergone significant progress in recent years, offering a wide range of potential applications. However, most soft robots are fabricated using synthetic elastomeric materials, contributing to e
Drones have shown to be useful aerial vehicles for unmanned transport missions such as food and medical supply delivery. This can be leveraged to deliver life-saving nutrition and medicine for people in emergency situations. However, commercial drones can generally only carry 10 %–30 % of their own…
Soft robotics is an emerging technology with excellent application prospects. However, due to the inherent compliance of the materials used to build soft robots, it is extremely complicated to control soft robots accurately. In this paper, we introduce a data-based control framework for solving the…
Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs), also known as McKibben artificial muscles, are used in a variety of applications owing to its many positive features, such as simple and lightweight structure and high force to weight ratio. Sensing is essential to precisely control PAMs. Previous studies have pr
This paper presents a method to create fish-like robots with tensegrity systems and describes a prototype modeled on the body shape of the rainbow trout with a length of 400 mm and a mass of 102 g that is driven by a waterproof servomotor. The structure of the tensegrity robot consists of rigid body…
Bio-inspired underwater robots have several benefits compared to traditional underwater vehicles such as agility, efficiency, and environmentally friendly body. However, bio-inspired underwater robots developed so far have a single swimming mode, which may limit their capability to perform different…
We present a fully edible pneumatic actuator based on gelatin-glycerol material. The actuator is monolithic, fabricated via a molding process, and measures 90 mm in length, 20 mm in width, and 17 mm in thickness. Thanks to the material mechanical characteristics similar to those of silicone elastome…
Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), a soft actuator technology, hold great promise for biomimetic underwater robots. The high-voltages required to drive DEAs can however make them challenging to use in water. This paper demonstrates a method to create DEA-based biomimetic swimming robots that ope…
A novel variable stiffness actuator composed of a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) and a low-melting-point-alloy (LMPA) embedded silicone substrate is demonstrated. The device which we call variable stiffness dielectric elastomer actuator (VSDEA) enables functional soft robots with a simplified s…