Making small robots stick Aerial views offer the chance to observe a wide range of terrain at once, but they come cost needing stay aloft. Graule et al. found that electrostatic forces could keep their insect-sized flying robot stuck underside surfaces (see Perspective by Kovac). They mounted an electrostatically charged pad top robot, which then reversibly existing elevated perches—including leaf—using less power than would be needed for sustained flight. Science , this issue p. 978 ; see also 895

In this work, we discuss the design of soft robotic fingers for robust precision grasping. Through a conceptual analysis finger shape and compliance during grasping, confirm that antipodal grasps are more stable when contact with object occurs on side (i.e., pinch grasps) instead fingertips. addition, show achieving such wide variety objects requires at least two independent bending segments each, but only actuation in proximal segment. Using physical prototype hand, evaluate improvement...

Abstract Soft robots adapt passively to complex environments due their inherent compliance, allowing them interact safely with fragile or irregular objects and traverse uneven terrain. The vast tunability ubiquity of textiles has enabled new soft robotic capabilities, especially in the field wearable robots, but existing textile processing techniques (e.g., cut‐and‐sew, thermal bonding) are limited terms rapid, additive, accessible, waste‐free manufacturing. While 3D knitting potential...

Soft robotics is an emerging technology that has shown considerable promise in deep-sea marine biological applications. It particularly useful facilitating delicate interactions with fragile organisms. This study describes the shipboard design, 3D printing and integration of custom soft robotic manipulators for investigating interacting were tested down to 2224m via a Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV) Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) facilitated diverse suite soft-bodied life....

Soft robot arms offer safety and adaptability due to their passive compliance, but this compliance typically limits payload capacity prevents them from performing many tasks. This paper presents a model-based design approach effectively increase the of soft arms. The proposed uses localized body stiffening decrease at end effector without sacrificing robot's range motion. is validated on both simulated real arm, where experiments show that increasing stiffness regions bodies reduces...

Insect-scale flying robots are currently unable to carry the power source and sensor suite required for autonomous operation. To overcome this challenge, we developed experimentally verified a non-linear damping model of actuation-limited flapping-wing vehicles with passively rotating wing hinges. In agreement studies on dynamics honey bees, found that optimal angle passive hinge in mid-stroke is about 70 ° rather than 45-50 as previously assumed. We further identified narrow actuation force...

Soft strain sensors have been explored as an unobtrusive approach for wearable motion tracking. However, accurate tracking of multi degree-of-freedom (DOF) noncyclic joint movements remains a challenge. This paper presents soft sensing shirt shoulder kinematics both cyclic and random arm in 3 DOFs: adduction/abduction, horizontal flexion/extension, internal/external rotation. The consists 8 textile-based capacitive sewn around the that communicate to customized readout electronics board...

Engineers and scientists often rely on their intuition experience when designing soft robotic systems. The development of performant controllers motion plans for these systems commonly requires time-consuming iterations hardware. We present the SoMo (Soft Motion) toolkit, a software framework that makes it easy to instantiate control typical continuum manipulators in an accurate physics simulator. introduces standardized human-readable description format manipulators. It leverages this...

Soft robotsoffer a host of benefits over traditional rigid robots, including inherent compliance that lets them passively adapt to variable environments and operate safely around humans fragile objects. However, same makes it hard use model-based methods in planning tasks requiring high precision or complex actuation sequences. Reinforcement learning (RL) can potentially find effective control policies, but training RL using physical soft robots is often infeasible, simulations has had...

Biosensors allowing for the rapid and sensitive detection of viral pathogens in environmental or clinical samples are urgently needed to prevent disease outbreaks spreading. We present a bioanalytical assay whole particles with single virus sensitivity. Specifically, we focus on human norovirus, highly infectious causing gastroenteritis. In our configuration, virus-like captured onto supported lipid bilayer containing virus-specific glycolipid detected after recognition by...

In-hand manipulation is challenging for soft robotic hands, especially in the real world where robots encounter a variety of object sizes and shapes. As such, role palm crucial, providing stabilizing contact to objects during grasping manipulation, controlling position with respect fingertips. We demonstrate an actuated capable enhancing in-hand capabilities hand by better-utilizing limited finger dexterity. With combination physical virtual experiments, we explore effects diameter height on...

As robots begin to move from structured industrial environments the real world, they must be equipped not only safely interact with environment, but also reason about how leverage contact perform tasks. In this work, we develop a modeling and motion planning framework for continuum that accounts anywhere along robot. We first present an analytical model manipulators under discuss ideal choice of generalized coordinates given properties manipulator task specifications. then demonstrate...

Bayesian neural network (BNN) priors are defined in parameter space, making it hard to encode prior knowledge expressed function space. We formulate a that incorporates functional constraints about what the output can or cannot be regions of input Output-Constrained BNNs (OC-BNN) represent an interpretable approach enforcing range constraints, fully consistent with framework and amenable black-box inference. demonstrate how OC-BNNs improve model robustness prevent prediction infeasible...

The need for robotic hands capable of gentle in-hand manipulation is growing rapidly as robots enter the real world. In this work, we show that arrangement digits in a soft hand has strong effect on capabilities. Introducing task-based performance metrics which quantify range motion, repeatability, and accuracy tasks, investigate designs with finger arrangements ranging from axisymmetric-circular to anthropomorphic. Using an open-source robot simulator, object size aspect ratio studied...

Domains where supervised models are deployed often come with task-specific constraints, such as prior expert knowledge on the ground-truth function, or desiderata like safety and fairness. We introduce a novel probabilistic framework for reasoning constraints formulate that enables us to effectively incorporate them into Bayesian neural networks (BNNs), including variant can be amortized over tasks. The resulting Output-Constrained BNN (OC-BNN) is fully consistent uncertainty quantification...

In article number 2212541, Robert J. Wood, Vanessa Sanchez, and co-workers demonstrate additively manufactured soft robots formed through 3D knitting.The variety of structures generated via machine knitting enables complex actuation motions from as little one yarn supports multiactuator devices with integrated sensing.

Recently introduced ControlNet has the ability to steer text-driven image generation process with geometric input such as human 2D pose, or edge features. While provides control over form of instances in generated image, it lacks capability dictate visual appearance each instance. We present FineControlNet provide fine instance's while maintaining precise pose capability. Specifically, we develop and demonstrate via images instance-level text prompts. The spatial alignment instance-specific...

Abstract Hexagonal OsB 2 is synthesized from osmium and boron powders in the molar ratio of 1:3 by high energy ball milling for 20 h followed annealing 6 d at 1050 °C sintering 1500 °C, 50 MPa 5 min.

A robot in a human-centric environment needs to account for the human's intent and future motion its task planning ensure safe effective operation. This requires symbolic reasoning about probable actions ability tie these specific locations physical environment. While one can train behavioral models capable of predicting human from past activities, this approach large amounts data achieve acceptable long-horizon predictions. More importantly, resulting are constrained formats modalities....