9 accepted papers
Despite their soft and compliant bodies, most of today’s soft robots have limitations when it comes to elongation or extension of their main structure. In contrast to this, a new type of soft robot called the eversion robot can grow longitudinally, exploiting the principle of eversion. Eversion robo…
In this paper, a magnetic-field-inspired robot navigation is used to navigate an under-actuated quad-copter towards the desired position amidst previously-unknown arbitrary-shaped convex obstacles. Taking inspiration from the phenomena of magnetic field interaction with charged particles observed in…
This paper describes a novel approach in human-robot interaction driven by ergonomics. With a clear focus on optimising ergonomics, the approach proposed here continuously observes a human user’s posture and by invoking appropriate cooperative robot movements, the user’s posture is, whenever require…
Taking inspiration from the properties of magnetic fields, we propose a reactive navigation method for soft continuum manipulators operating in unknown environments. The proposed navigation method outperforms previous works since it is able to successfully achieve collision-free movements towards th…
The constantly increasing amount of machines operating in the vicinity of humans makes it necessary to rethink the design approach for such machines to ensure that they are safe when interacting with humans. Traditional mechanisms are rigid and heavy and as such considered unsuitable, even dangerous…
Muscle activity monitoring or Electromyography (EMG) is useful in gait analysis, injury prevention, computer or robot interfaces and assisting patients with communication difficulties. However, EMG is typically invasive or obtrusive, expensive and difficult to use for untrained users. A possible sol…
Proximity and distance estimation sensors are broadly used in robotic hands to enhance the quality of grasping during grasp planning, grasp correction and in-hand manipulation. This paper presents a fiber optical proximity sensor that is integrated with a tactile sensing fingertip of a robotic hand…
This paper presents a highly compact fibre-optic system based on light intensity modulation for multi-segment flex sensing in pliable robot arms, e.g., articulated surgical instruments. This fibre-optic arrangement is 7.5 mm in diameter and is comprised of a two-segment flexible and stretchable Stei…
This paper presents an innovative hand-held device able to compute stiffness when interacting with a soft object. The device is composed of four linear indenters and a USB camera. The stiffness is computed in real-time, tracking the movements of spherical features in the image of the camera. Those m…