13 accepted papers
For pneumatic artificial muscles, it is always considered the more maximum contraction ratio the better. While for human joint assisting applications, PAMs with configurable maximum contraction rate are more suitable because of advantageous safety and adaptability. A PAM based on planar-to-specific-
Soft actuators have shown advantages of adaptiveness, large deformation, and safe human-robot interaction, making them suitable for various applications. Herein, a novel soft flat tube twisting actuator (SFTTA) is proposed. The SFTTA is composed of a folded flat tube sandwiched between two silicone…
Fluidic and tendon driven actuators are widely applied in soft robotic hand design. Fluidic actuated soft robotic hands are highly compliant and can adapt to various objects. Tendon driven soft robotic hands are easier to control and have high dexterity and large force output, however, they are less
Robotic hands with anthropomorphism considerations are of prominent popularity in human-centered environment. Existing anthropomorphic robotic hands achieving part or most of human hand comparable dexterity have been applied as various robotic end-effectors and prosthetics. However, two deficiencies…
Soft robot is known for great safety in human-centered environments due to its inherent compliance. However, the compliance resulting from the soft continuum structure and viscoelastic material also induces challenges for sensing and control of soft robots. In this letter, we propose a proprioceptiv
Soft continuum robots have many applications such as medical surgeries, service industries, rescue tasks, and underwater exploration. Flexibility and good accessibility of such robots are the key reasons for their popularity. However, the complexity of their structural design and control systems lim…
Pneumatic soft grippers have nonlinear continuum deformation enabling them to adapt to irregular object shapes. Most of the existing pneumatic soft grippers use only open-loop control. Attempts for closed-loop control of soft grippers are all based on air pressure regulation, which is inaccurate and
In this letter, we present an innovative design of bioinspired soft pneumatic actuators with built-in pressure and position sensors. The soft actuator is designed with segmented bending to mimic human finger motion. Bending angles between segments are measured by the built-in position sensors. On ea
Soft robotic actuators are highly elastic bodies that oscillate drastically once excited. This oscillation is undesirable in many applications. So far, very little studies on soft actuator damping have been reported. In this paper, we report a simple and effective vibration damping method based on p…
Soft robotic actuators are highly elastic bodies that oscillate drastically once excited. This oscillation is undesirable in many applications. So far, very little studies on soft actuator damping have been reported. In this paper, we report a simple and effective vibration damping method based on p
Soft robots are inherently compliant and adaptive, therefore they are promising candidates for interacting with humans. However robotic manipulators utilizing soft actuators are often constrained by a series of actuator performance limitations. In this work we design a novel linear soft robotic actu…
Current research interests for humanoid robots include cost, static stability, and human-likeness. With the help of well-developed locomotion controllers, human-like gait has been realized on humanoid robots with higher energy efficiency and increased motion speed. However, such results are based on…
Shape memory polymer (SMP) is a type of functional materials that changes Young's modulus when heated above glass transition temperature (Tg). In this work, this property of SMP has been explored for the design and fabrication of a modular omni-directional joint with variable stiffness. When cascadi