19 accepted papers
In this paper, we developed an autonomous decentralized control method that incorporates phase-difference adjustment based on a sigmoid function, enabling the design of both increases and decreases in discrepancy. The method was applied to a peristaltic mixing pump capable of mixing and transporting…
In this paper, we developed an autonomous decentralized control method that incorporates phase-difference adjustment based on a sigmoid function, enabling the design of both increases and decreases in discrepancy. The method was applied to a peristaltic mixing pump capable of mixing and transporting
Jamming grippers can grasp objects of various shapes with simple control. However, grasping fragile objects is challenging, as a secure grasp requires firm pressing, which can potentially damage delicate objects. Thus, it is important to achieve an appropriate pressing distance for damage-free grasp
Harnessing elastic energy for power amplification in robotic locomotion, inspired by living organisms' mechanisms, enables robots to achieve dynamic and rapid movements even with actuators of limited instantaneous power output. Previous research in this domain has employed multiple elastic elements
This study presents a bistable tensegrity robot that can perform repetitive jumps using one motor. This robot is based on a tensegrity structure that uses rigid plate-shaped compressors. To achieve bistability in this structure, we optimized the position of additional springs using a physics simulat…
This paper presents a vibration robot driven by a single motor that produces various behaviors by exploiting the deformable beams’ resonance phenomenon. The experiments using the prototypes demonstrate that the behavior can be switched by changing the motor’s vibration frequency. This research shows
This paper presents a novel method of realizing in-hand manipulation inspired by the peristaltic motion of a large-sized caterpillar. The sharp contrast between the proposed soft-bodied finger and the conventional hard/rigid robotic ones is peristaltic motion with compression and bending deformation…
Robotic surfaces can design the space they cover by deforming and can be used in laparoscopic surgery to secure a surgical field space. In medical applications, a coordinate transformation is crucial to cooperate with other robots. However, allowing shear in the robot surfaces' deformations makes ac
Origami/kirigami robotics are opening a path that leads to lightweight, compact, and expandable robots. However, it is generally challenging to design agile motions for origami/kirigami robots due to their size and the intrinsic limitation of the materials. In this paper, we propose to use the bista…
Storing elastic energy in a soft body and releasing it instantly enables ultrafast movement beyond muscle capability, which small animals (mainly arthropods) realize. We applied this mechanism to a soft robot to achieve locomotion on top of a tubular surface such as a branch (i.e., upside-down brach
The exploration of spatially limited terrestrial or aquatic environments requires miniature and lightweight robots. Soft-bodied robot research is paving ways for a new class of small-scale robots that can navigate a variety of environments with minimum influence on the environment itself. However, i…
Although picking up objects a few centimeters in size is a common task, achieving such ability in a robot manipulator remains challenging. We take a step toward solving this problem by focusing on the task of picking a 1.0-cm screw from a bulk bin using only tactile information to achieve the task.…
As robots become more complex, small, and sophisticated, the cost and effort necessary for “wiring” become critical; the complex wiring makes the fabrication costly and necessitates care about space and stiffness of wires, which can inhibit the deformation of soft-bodied robots. The concept of power
We used cells, which are the units that make up a living body, as building blocks to design a biomachine hybrid system and develop a tactile sensor that uses living cells as sensor receptors. We fabricated a novel cell tactile sensor with the electrodes formed using printed electronics technology. T…
Multimodal deformations of soft materials such as compression and bending are a commonplace event on soft-bodied animals (e.g., worms) and soft-bodied robots. Usually, such deformation modes are separately analyzed or constrained to decrease the degrees of freedom when one design motion of the soft-
Soft-bodied robots are getting attention from researchers as their potential in designing compliant and adaptive robots. However, soft-bodied robots also pose many challenges not only in non-linear controlling but also in design and fabrication. Especially, the non-compatibility between soft materia…
Soft-bodied and continuum robots have shown great adaptability to the environment thanks to its flexibility of the body. They have great potential in environment exploring or rescuing mission. One of those robots is snake-like soft-bodied robots. A snake robot is often made by attaching passive whee…
This paper presents a methodology to design mechanosensor feedback to oscillator-based controller for worm-like soft-bodied robots. A reinforcement learning technique, i.e., PEPG, is employed to embed appropriate mechanosensor feedback to harness global entrainment among the controller, the body dyn…
Building robots from soft materials provides opportunities to create more robust and adaptive designs: soft bodies can conform to complex shapes in the environment and they are able to cushion shocks and store elastic energy. The challenge, however, remains to control highly deformable moveable stru…