A compliant three-dimensional (3D)-printed soft gripper is designed based on the bioinspired spiral spring in this study. The soft gripper is then 3D-printed using a suitable thermoplastic filament material to deliver the desired performance. The sen...
Beyond their colorful appearances and versatile geometries, flowers can self-shape-morph by adapting to environmental changes. Nature-inspired artificial systems that mimic their natural counterparts in function, flexibility, and adaptation find an e...
To allow versatile manipulation of soft robots made of compliant materials with limited force transmission, variable stiffness has been actively developed, which has become one of the most important factors in soft robotics. Variable stiffness is usu...
Soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) are extensively investigated due to their simple control strategies for producing sophisticated motions. However, the motions or operations of homogeneous SPAs show obvious limitations in some varying curvature interac...
Achieving both high compliance and stiffness is a key issue in stiffness-tunable soft robots. A wide-range variable-stiffness method keeping pure soft characteristic is proposed by bioinspired design of deep-sea glass sponges adopting thermoplastic s...
Sensory data are critical for soft robot perception. However, integrating sensors to soft robots remains challenging due to their inherent softness. An alternative approach is indirect sensing through an estimation scheme, which uses robot dynamics a...
Robotic joints are fundamental components in artificial graspers and manipulators, and they are designed to achieve high dexterity to carry out various tasks. Traditional robotic hands are often driven by rigid joints, such as tendons and electric mo...
Accessing tubular environment is critical in medicine. For example, gastrointestinal tract related cancers are the leading causes of cancer deaths globally. To diagnose and treat these cancers, clinicians need accessing the gastrointestinal tract, fo...
In this article, we propose a soft eel robot design using soft pneumatic actuators that mimic eel muscles. Four pairs of soft actuators are used to construct the eel robot body. Pulse signals with suitable shifting phases are utilized to control deli...
The conformability is yet a challenge for most soft robotic grippers due to the continuous motion and deformation of these machines under external force. Herein, inspired by the movement mechanism of human fingers, we propose a novel tendon-driven so...