7 accepted papers
Osmosis-driven actuation offers a promising strategy for developing untethered, environmentally responsive soft and shape shifting mechanisms and robots. In this work, we explore the use of superabsorbent polymer (SAP) pellets as large-scale, shape-morphing actuators. Upon exposure to water, these a
Gecko-inspired adhesives have the advantage of being able to grasp and release flat surfaces in a vacuum using their microwedge structures. This makes them an especially attractive solution for perching on and grasping flat objects in space for free-flying robots. To grasp and anchor onto these flat…
ReachBot is a robot that uses extendable and retractable booms as limbs to move around unpredictable environments such as martian caves. Each boom is capped by a microspine gripper designed for grasping rocky surfaces. Motion planning for ReachBot must be versatile to accommo-date variable terrain f…
A largely untapped potential for aerial robots is to capture airborne targets in flight. We present an approach in which a simple dynamic model of a quadrotor/target interaction leads to the design of a gripper and associated velocity sufficiency region with a high probability of capture. A model of
ReachBot is a new concept for planetary exploration, consisting of a small body and long, lightweight extending arms loaded primarily in tension. The arms are equipped with spined grippers for anchoring on rock surfaces. The design and testing of a planar prototype is presented here. Experiments wit…
Gecko-inspired adhesives have several desirable characteristics in robotic grasping: controllable activation and deactivation of adhesion, ability to grasp and release with minimal disturbance, and grasping without the need of form closure. Previously proposed grippers with this technology either re…
Active sensing provides a way to assess whether a thin film of gecko-inspired adhesive has made good contact with a surface. This knowledge is useful for applications like gripping objects in space where a failed grasp could lead to loss of the object. Our active sensing approach uses Lamb waves in