7 papers
PneuTac: Tactile Manipulation with Soft Pneumatic Robots via Unified MPM-Gaussian Splatting Simulation
Shaohong Zhong, Marco Pontin, Joe Watson +2
Soft robots and tactile sensors have demonstrated great potential in delicate manipulation tasks. Soft pneumatic robots enable safe contact through compliance, and vision-based tac…
Quadruped Obstacle Avoidance and Footstep Planning with Distributed Low-cost Time-of-Flight Sensors
Giammarco Caroleo, Timothée Mahamoodally, Matteo Manzardo +6
Quadruped robots typically rely on depth cameras and LiDAR sensors to map their local environment. However, these sensors have limited close-range coverage, are relatively expensiv…
Continuum Robot Localization using Distributed Time-of-Flight Sensors
Spencer Teetaert, Giammarco Caroleo, Marco Pontin +4
Localization and mapping of an environment are crucial tasks for any robot operating in unstructured environments. Time-of-flight (ToF) sensors (e.g.,~lidar) have proven useful in…
Optical Waveguide-based Spider Web Enables Resilient Impact Detection and Localization
Dylan Wilson, Marco Pontin, Peter Walters +1
Spiders use their webs as multifunctional tools that enable capturing and localizing prey and more general environmental sensing through vibrations. Inspired by their biological fu…
Compliant Beaded-String Jamming For Variable Stiffness Anthropomorphic Fingers
Maximilian Westermann, Marco Pontin, Leone Costi +2
Achieving human-like dexterity in robotic grippers remains an open challenge, particularly in ensuring robust manipulation in uncertain environments. Soft robotic hands try to addr…
Soft and Highly-Integrated Optical Fiber Bending Sensors for Proprioception in Multi-Material 3D Printed Fingers
Ellis Capp, Marco Pontin, Peter Walters +1
Accurate shape sensing, only achievable through distributed proprioception, is a key requirement for closed-loop control of soft robots. Low-cost power efficient optoelectronic sen…
JAMMit! Monolithic 3D-Printing of a Bead Jamming Soft Pneumatic Arm
Yao Yao, Maximilian Westermann, Marco Pontin +2
3D-printed bellow soft pneumatic arms are widely adopted for their flexible design, ease of fabrication, and large deformation capabilities. However, their low stiffness limits the…