Soft robotic gripper systems that can safely and nondestructively collect biological and artifact samples and perform deep-sea manipulation tasks are essential for deep-sea science and engineering applications. In this article, we implement a soft robotic gripper composed of nitinol-embedded soft fingers and an in situ wearable mechanism, which allows the soft gripper to be put … [Read more...] about A Nitinol-Embedded Wearable Soft Robotic Gripper for Deep-Sea Manipulation: A Wearable Device for Deep-Sea Delicate Operation
Soft robotics
SoRoSim: A MATLAB Toolbox for Hybrid Rigid
Soft robotics has been a trending topic within the robotics community for almost two decades. However, available tools for the modeling and analysis of soft robots are still limited. This article introduces a user-friendly MATLAB toolbox, Soft Robot Simulator (SoRoSim), that integrates the geometric variable-strain (GVS) model of Cosserat rods to facilitate the static and … [Read more...] about SoRoSim: A MATLAB Toolbox for Hybrid Rigid
Tensegristats: Lightweight Untethered Morphing Robots
Flexible and shape-shifting structures are common in nature. Creating shape-shifting machines using rigid components requires complex design work. Soft robotic attempts are closer to the muscular hydrostats they mimic but are slow and inefficient untethered and do not generally allow large-scale shape change between forms. Here we present the idea of “tensegristat” robots in … [Read more...] about Tensegristats: Lightweight Untethered Morphing Robots
Contact Shape and Pose Recognition
Soft magnetic tactile sensors have been gradually applied to robotic systems due to their low-cost and simple fabrication. The previous soft magnetic tactile sensor was developed for tactile features of a single point (i.e., force/location) estimation and proved the feasibility by experiments. However, extracting tactile features of a surface (i.e., contact shape) by magnetic … [Read more...] about Contact Shape and Pose Recognition
Challenges and Outlook in Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objects
Deformable object manipulation (DOM) is an emerging research problem in robotics. The ability to manipulate deformable objects endows robots with higher autonomy and promises new applications in the industrial, services, and health-care sectors. However, compared to rigid object manipulation, the manipulation of deformable objects is considerably more complex and is still an … [Read more...] about Challenges and Outlook in Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objects
