5 accepted papers
Research in the area of photo-actuation is growing rapidly, yet there are few examples of photo-actuators with practical use cases. One potential application is for the control of intelligent electromagnetic surfaces, or two-dimensional arrays that could shape and control an incident electromagnetic…
Incorporating compliance into shape-changing displays can improve their wearability and actuation modalities. While recent advances in soft actuators highlight promising paths for soft shape-changing displays, these displays currently face some practical challenges of device failure and limited actu…
Latch-mediated spring-actuation (LaMSA) is utilized in a majority of jumping robots for its ability to slowly load and quickly release energy to generate high-power movement. Such mechanisms are found in robots that jump off of solid surfaces and even off of water. However, no robot currently employ…
Many soft robots are capable of significantly changing their shape, an ability that can offer advantages in many applications. For instance, such a robot can flatten its body to fit under small gaps and expand to move over large obstacles. Further, because these shape changes are usually driven by a…
A fundamental challenge in the field of modular and collective robots is balancing the trade-off between unit-level simplicity, which allows scalability, and unit-level functionality, which allows meaningful behaviors of the collective. At the same time, a challenge in the field of soft robotics is…