Conference Day (6 April)

One motivation for investigating alternative approaches to robot actuation, such as soft mechanisms, is the observation that many biological systems acheive task success as much through their body design as through their brains. We have investigated a range of insect behaviours from this point of view, from simple steering through to complex navigation. This talk will reflect on some of the general insights gained, particularly into the need to combine multiple methodological approaches to understand biological function.

Soft Passive Swimmer Optimization: From Simulation to Reality Using Data-Driven Transformation
Obayashi, Nana; Bosio, Carlo; Hughes, Josie

Calibration method for soft robots modeled with FEM: application to anisotropy
Vanneste, Félix; Goury, Olivier; Duriez, Christian

Planning of Soft-Rigid Hybrid Arms in contact with compliant environment: Application to the Transrectal Biopsy of the Prostate
Coevoet, Eulalie; ADAGOLODJO, Yinoussa; Lin, Meichun; Duriez, Christian; Ficuciello, Fanny

Internally Actuated Triangular Lattice and its Variants for Modular Active Cell Robots (MACROs)
Singh, Gaurav; Dollar, Aaron

Automated Synthesis of Pneumatic Soft Actuators
Smith, Lawrence; Hainsworth, Travis; MacCurdy, Robert; Haimes, Jacob

Design, Characterization, and Dynamic Modeling of BEAST: a Bistable Elastomeric Actuator for Swift Task
Tao, Weijia; Qiao, Zhi; Zhang, Wenlong

Dynamic Modeling of Soft Material Actuators Combining Constant Curvature Kinematics and Floating-Base Approach
Mehl, Phillip Maximilian; Bartholdt, Max; Schappler, Moritz

Energy-based shape regulation of soft robots with unactuated dynamics dominated by elasticity
Borja, Pablo; Dabiri, Azita; Della Santina, Cosimo

Hydrogel-based soft pneumatic bending actuator with self-healing and proprioception capabilities
López-Díaz, Antonio; Braic, Andrei; Ramos, Francisco; Payo, Ismael; Vázquez Fernández-Pacheco, Ester; Vazquez, Andres S.

Kinematic Analysis of Soft Continuum Manipulators Based on Sparse Workspace Mapping
LI, Jing; Chen, Xiaojiao; Su, Yinyin; Wang, Wenping; Lam, James; Wang, Zheng

Kinematic Modeling of Handed Shearing Auxetics via Piecewise Constant Curvature
Garg, Aman; Good, Ian; Revier, Daniel; Airis, Kevin; Lipton, Jeffrey

Optimization of spring constant of a pneumatic artificial muscles-spring driven antagonistic structure
Zhou, Zhongchao; Kokubu, Shota; Wang, Yuanyuan; Lu, Yuxi; Tortós, Pablo; Yu, Wenweiv

Peeling of Electroadhesion Soft Tapes Adhered to Cylindrical Substrates
Mastrangelo, Massimiliano

Self-organization of physics-informed mechanisms in recurrent neural networks: a case study in pneumatic artificial muscles
Sun, Wentao; Akashi, Nozomi; Kuniyoshi, Yasuo; Nakajima, Kohei

Static Modeling of Pneumatic Artificial Muscle Actuator
Tondu, Bertrand

Stretching the Boundary: Shell Finite Elements for Pneumatic Soft Actuators
Smith, Lawrence; Haimes, Jacob; MacCurdy, Robert

Tractable and Intuitive Dynamic Model for Soft Robots via the Recursive Newton-Euler Algorithm
Jensen, Spencer; Johnson, Curtis C; Lindberg, Alexa; Killpack, Marc

Trajectory Optimization for Thermally-Actuated Soft Planar Robot Limbs
Wertz, Anthony Tyler; Sabelhaus, Andrew P.; Majidi, Carmel

An origami crawling robot driven by a folded self-sustained oscillator
Yan, Wenzhong; Mehta, Ankur

Size Changing Soft Modules for Temperature Regulated Self-assembly and Self-disassembly
Han, Junyi; Lahondes, Quentin; Miyashita, Shuhei

A Healable Resistive Heater as a Stimuli-Providing System in Self-Healing Soft Robots
Seyedreza, Kashef Tabrizian; Sahraeeazartamar, Fatemeh; Brancart, Joost; Roels, Ellen; Ferrentino, Pasquale; Van Assche, Guy; Vanderborght, Bram; Terryn, Seppe

Soft Lattice Modules that Behave Independently and Collectively
Zhao, Luyang; Wu, Yijia; Blanchet, Julien; Perroni-Scharf, Maxine; Huang, Xiaonan; Booth, Joran; Kramer-Bottiglio, Rebecca; Balkcom, Devin

Organisms and robots must find ways to return to a viable state when confronted with unexpected internal surprise such as injury, or external surprise, such as a new environment. Rigid robots can only confront such challenges by adapting behaviorally. Soft robots have the added option of morphological adaptation: changing shape, material properties, topology, plurality, and/or mass. Finally, biological robots — machines built completely from biological tissues — inherit the protean nature of their donor organisms, providing them with forms of morphological and behavioral adaptation beyond even today’s most morphologically plastic soft robots. In this talk I will review our recent efforts to create biological robots, and how their protean natures have led us to rethink how we approach soft robotics, embodied cognition, and intelligence in general.

Towards Very Low-Cost Iterative Prototyping for Fully Printable Dexterous Soft Robotic Hands
Bauer, Dominik; Bauer, Cornelia; Lakshmipathy, Arjun; Shu, Roberto; Pollard, Nancy S

Embedded Soft Sensing in Soft Ring Actuator for Aiding with the Self-Organisation of the In-Hand Rotational Manipulation
Hashem, Ryman; Iida, Fumiya

Combining suction and friction to stabilize a soft gripper to shear and normal forces, for manipulation of soft objects in wet environments
Sandoval, Jessica; Xu, Thomas; Adibnazari, Iman; Deheyn, Dimitri; Tolley, Michael T.

A Magnetically-Actuated Flexible Capsule Robot for Untethered Cardiovascular Interventions
van Vliet, Gijsbert Michiel; Misra, Sarthak; Kalpathy Venkiteswaran, Venkatasubramanian

Case study of a rapid prototyping method for optimizing soft gripper structures with integrated piezoresistive sensors
Georgopoulou, Antonia; Eckey, Louisa Marie; Mondal, Somashree; Clemens, Frank

Getting a Grip: in Materio Evolution of Membrane Morphology for Soft Robotic Jamming Grippers
Howard, David; O’Connor, Jack Anthony; Letchford, Jordan; Brett, James; Joseph, Therese; Lin, Sophia; Furby, Daniel; Delaney, Gary W

HEDRA: A Bio-Inspired Modular Tensegrity Robot With Polyhedral Parallel Modules
Ramadoss, Vishal; Sagar, Keerthi; Ikbal, Mohamed Sadiq; Lugo Calles, Jesus Hiram; Siddaraboina, Raghuveer; Zoppi, Matteo

Module-W: Reconfigurable Modular Robots forming Compliant Structures
Kaneishi, Daisuke; Takijo, Kota

One-shot Learning Closed-loop Manipulation of Soft Slender Objects Based on a Planar Polynomial Curvature Model
Besselaar, Lars; Della Santina, Cosimo

OobSoft Gripper: A reconfigurable soft gripper using Oobleck for versatile and delicate grasping
Yumbla, Francisco; Yumbla, Wendy; Quiñones Yumbla, Emiliano; Moon, Hyungpil

Programmable multistable soft grippers
Osorio, Juan; Morgan, Harith; Arrieta, Andres

R3VAMPs – Fully Recyclable, Reconfigurable, and Recoverable Vacuum Actuated Muscle-inspired Pneumatic structures
Rayner, Portia; Morita, Luka; Sun, Xiaoruo; Sameoto, Dan

Recycling-oriented fabrication of soft robots
Nguyen, Anh Minh; Seibel, Arthur

Sensitivity Analysis for 3D Printed Soft Pneumatic Actuators from 2D Origami Patterns to Functional Systems
García Morales, Ditzia Susana; Raatz, Annika; Jiang, Chaoming

Soft robotic hand with finger-bending/friction-reduction switching mechanism via 1-degree-of-freedom flow control
Nishimura, Toshihiro; Shimizu, Kensuke; Nojiri, Seita; Tadakuma, Kenjiro; Suzuki, Yosuke; Tsuji, Tokuo; Watanabe, Tetsuyou

Temperature Driven Soft Reversible Self-folding Origami String
Lahondes, Quentin; Miyashita, Shuhei

Unleashing Soft Modular Robots by means of a Bio-inspired Connection Strategy
Zappetti, Davide; Stewart, William; Boutot, Maxime; Floreano, Dario

Soft Sensorized Physical Twin for Harvesting Raspberries
Junge, Kai; Hughes, Josie

Contact-Rich Soft-Rigid Robots Inspired by Push Puppets
Bern, James; Zamora Yañez, Leonardo; Sologuren, Emily; Rus, Daniela

Behavioral Diversity Generated from Body Environment Interactions in a Simulated Tensegrity Robot
Terajima, Ryo; Inoue, Katsuma; Yonekura, Shogo; Nakajima, Kohei; Kuniyoshi, Yasuo

Soft Tensegrity Robot Driven by Thin Artificial Muscles for the Exploration of Unknown Spatial Configurations
Kobayashi, Ryota; Nabae, Hiroyuki; Endo, Gen; Suzumori, Koichi

Pitch-up Motion Mechanism with Heat Welding by Soft Inflatable Growing Robot
Satake, Yuki; ISHII, Hiroyuki

Electro-Ribbon Muscles for Biomimetic Wing Flapping
Chong, Jian Huai; Romero, Christian; Taghavi, Majid; Rossiter, Jonathan

Science Café are informal panel discussions among a small group of researchers moderated by a scientific journalist and open to a generic audience.

The Science Café II focuses on “Soft robots and the market: opportunities and challenges”, aims at discussing different experiences in technology transfer, opportunities in the different national frameworks, as well as what is missing to fill the gap from research to application for soft robots.

The events will be in person only.