Our lab is thinking about how to connect flexible and stretchable electronic circuits together. Whether it’s a soft silicone stick-on “electronic tattoo” or a fabric based e-textile, no one wants to plug in a huge lumpy connector at the edge of the device. However, these circuits usually need connectors for power and communication. We are …
Category Archives: Lab News
OptiGap: a customizable bend location sensor
Where is that thing bending? PhD student Paul Bupe has developed a prototyping system for determining where robots and other flexible structures are changing curvature. The OptiGap concept uses soft plastic 3d printing filaments as waveguides with gaps that let light out when bent. Not only is the system low cost and customizable on the …
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Adaptive Grasping Control
Ph.D. student Michael Han has further improved the optoelectronic control method with an adaptive control algorithm, enabling robotic grippers to hold on to objects without crushing them even under changing conditions. This video also shows a little more detail about the soft optical sensor’s construction. Paper:
Sensor stops slipping
Ph.D. student Michael Han has developed a new optoelectronic tactile sensor that enables robots to better emulate the grasping abilities of the human hand. The sensor, described in “Soft, All-Polymer Optoelectronic Tactile Sensor for Stick-Slip Detection,” combines a skin-like soft silicone material with a bristle friction model to provide not only normal force information, but …
Electronically Reconfigurable Virtual Joints by Shape Memory Alloy-Induced Buckling of Curved Sheets
In our latest paper we leveraged the anisotropic properties of curved sheets to create reconfigurable joints. Imagine a flat material like a thin piece of paper. This piece of paper can be stiffened by curving it along a single axis into a U-shape. In this case the anisotropic property is that it resists bending along …