10 citations · 26 across the 28 of their papers we have counts for
30 papers
A Model-Based Decoupling Strategy for Proprioception and Contact Sensing in an Architected Soft Manipulator
Francesco Stella, Annan Zhang, Cosimo Della Santina +2
Soft continuum robots require embedded sensing for proprioception and contact detection, yet integrating sensors into sparse, highly deformable architected structures remains chall…
Communicative Efficiency of Single vs. Multi-Axis Robot Neck Motion
Chapa Sirithunge, Haewon Jeong, Qinghua Guan +2
Nonverbal communication through head and neck movement is fundamental to human social signalling, yet how robotic neck morphology translates motion into communicative information r…
Modular Anthropomorphic Hand Design via Multi-Parameter Finger Benchmarking and Selection
Yu Zhang, Huijiang Wang, Josie Hughes
Designing anthropomorphic dexterous robotic hands remains challenging as the design space straddles morphology, actuation, and sensing properties, and performance metrics span both…
Polymander II: an amphibious salamander-inspired robot with contact and flow sensors
Qiyuan Fu, Sudong Lee, Andrea Grillo +4
Robots benefit from sensory information to coordinate body movement, gain robustness against perturbations, and transition between different modes to adapt to various terrains. How…
Swim2Real: VLM-Guided System Identification for Sim-to-Real Transfer
Kevin Qiu, Kyle Walker, Mike Y. Michelis +2
We present Swim2Real, a pipeline that calibrates a 16-parameter robotic fish simulator from swimming videos using vision-language model (VLM) feedback, requiring no hand-designed s…
Tendon Force Modeling for Sim2Real Transfer of Reinforcement Learning Policies for Tendon-Driven Robots
Valentin Yuryev, Josie Hughes
Robots which make use of soft or compliant inter- actions often leverage tendon-driven actuation which enables actuators to be placed more flexibly, and compliance to be maintained…
SwarmCoDe: A Scalable Co-Design Framework for Heterogeneous Robot Swarms via Dynamic Speciation
Andrew Wilhelm, Josie Hughes
Robot swarms offer inherent robustness and the capacity to execute complex, collaborative tasks surpassing the capabilities of single-agent systems. Co-designing these systems is c…
Simple Models, Real Swimming: Digital Twins for Tendon-Driven Underwater Robots
Mike Y. Michelis, Nana Obayashi, Josie Hughes +1
Mimicking the graceful motion of swimming animals remains a core challenge in soft robotics due to the complexity of fluid-structure interaction and the difficulty of controlling s…
Vid2Sid: Videos Can Help Close the Sim2Real Gap
Kevin Qiu, Yu Zhang, Marek Cygan +1
Calibrating a robot simulator's physics parameters (friction, damping, material stiffness) to match real hardware is often done by hand or with black-box optimizers that reduce err…
Bridging Embodiment Gaps: Deploying Vision-Language-Action Models on Soft Robots
Haochen Su, Cristian Meo, Francesco Stella +3
Robotic systems are increasingly expected to operate in human-centered, unstructured environments where safety, adaptability, and generalization are essential. Vision-Language-Acti…
Excitation of Looped Bistable Bands for High-Speed Linear Actuation
Sareum Kim, Josie Hughes
Soft robotics increasingly relies on smart materials and innovative structures, with bistable tape springs emerging as a promising option. These structures exhibit intriguing dynam…
Efficient Model-Based Reinforcement Learning for Robot Control via Online Optimization
Fang Nan, Hao Ma, Qinghua Guan +3
We present an online model-based reinforcement learning algorithm suitable for controlling complex robotic systems directly in the real world. Unlike prevailing sim-to-real pipelin…
State Estimation for Compliant and Morphologically Adaptive Robots
Valentin Yuryev, Max Polzin, Josie Hughes
Locomotion robots with active or passive compliance can show robustness to uncertain scenarios, which can be promising for agricultural, research and environmental industries. Howe…
Lang2Morph: Language-Driven Morphological Design of Robotic Hands
Yanyuan Qiao, Kieran Gilday, Yutong Xie +1
Designing robotic hand morphologies for diverse manipulation tasks requires balancing dexterity, manufacturability, and task-specific functionality. While open-source frameworks an…
Learning to Move in Rhythm: Task-Conditioned Motion Policies with Orbital Stability Guarantees
Maximilian Stölzle, T. Konstantin Rusch, Zach J. Patterson +5
Learning from demonstration provides a sample-efficient approach to acquiring complex behaviors, enabling robots to move robustly, compliantly, and with fluidity. In this context,…
A Survey on Soft Robot Adaptability: Implementations, Applications, and Prospects
Zixi Chen, Di Wu, Qinghua Guan +8
Soft robots, compared to rigid robots, possess inherent advantages, including higher degrees of freedom, compliance, and enhanced safety, which have contributed to their increasing…
Soft yet Effective Robots via Holistic Co-Design
Maximilian Stölzle, Niccolò Pagliarani, Francesco Stella +6
Soft robots promise inherent safety via their material compliance for seamless interactions with humans or delicate environments. Despite progress, the field struggles to balance t…
8-DoFs Cable Driven Parallel Robots for Bimanual Teleportation
Hung Hon Cheng, Josie Hughes
Teleoperation plays a critical role in intuitive robot control and imitation learning, particularly for complex tasks involving mobile manipulators with redundant degrees of freedo…
Control the Soft Robot Arm with its Physical Twin
Qinghua Guan, Hung Hon Cheng, Benhui Dai +1
To exploit the compliant capabilities of soft robot arms we require controller which can exploit their physical capabilities. Teleoperation, leveraging a human in the loop, is a ke…
Online Imitation Learning for Manipulation via Decaying Relative Correction through Teleoperation
Cheng Pan, Hung Hon Cheng, Josie Hughes
Teleoperated robotic manipulators enable the collection of demonstration data, which can be used to train control policies through imitation learning. However, such methods can req…
Embodied Manipulation with Past and Future Morphologies through an Open Parametric Hand Design
Kieran Gilday, Chapa Sirithunge, Fumiya Iida +1
A human-shaped robotic hand offers unparalleled versatility and fine motor skills, enabling it to perform a broad spectrum of tasks with precision, power and robustness. Across the…
Language Conditioned Multi-Finger Dexterous Manipulation Enabled by Physical Compliance and Switching of Controllers
Cheng Pan, Kai Junge, Benhui Dai +2
Human dexterity arises from combining high-level task reasoning with finger-level dexterity control and physical compliance at the muscle and skin layers. In robotics, large Vision…
A Versatile Neural Network Configuration Space Planning and Control Strategy for Modular Soft Robot Arms
Zixi Chen, Qinghua Guan, Josie Hughes +2
Modular soft robot arms (MSRAs) are composed of multiple modules connected in a sequence, and they can bend at different angles in various directions. This capability allows MSRAs…
Robotic Optimization of Powdered Beverages Leveraging Computer Vision and Bayesian Optimization
Emilia Szymanska, Josie Hughes
The growing demand for innovative research in the food industry is driving the adoption of robots in large-scale experimentation, as it offers increased precision, replicability, a…