In this study, we report on a simple and versatile plug-n-play microfluidic system that is fabricated from flexible assembly of glass-based flow-control modules for flexibly manipulating flows for versatile emulsion generation. The microfluidic system consists of three basic functional units: a flow-control module, a positioning groove, and a connection fastener. The flow-control module that is...

This paper presents a system developed with off-the shelf components which will be used to study humanrobot cooperative tasks from tele-manipulation to supervisory control. The approach enables the design to be modular and flexible, thus presenting an upgradable laboratory and test bed for prototyping autonomy-enhanced and supervised-control activities for Space-Analogue Mobile Manipulation.

I will present origami folding as an exciting challenge problem for the field of robotic manipulation. The problem is familiar, but also challenging – an origami design can be described as a flexible closed chain with a large number of degrees of freedom. Through an exploration of origami folding, my thesis will give insight and provide a partial solution to some very hard manipulation problems.

Flexible endoscopes are used in many surgical procedures and diagnostic exams, like in gastroscopy or colonoscopy. They have also been used recently for endoscopic surgical procedures using natural orifices (NOTES). Flexible endoscopes allow to access operating areas which are not easily reachable, with one small or no incision. However, their manipulation is complex especially for surgical int...

In this paper, we propose an entirely new strategy for dynamic manipulation of sheet-like flexible objects. As one example, we consider dynamic folding of a cloth by a highspeed robot system consisting of two high-speed multifingered hands mounted on two sliders and a high-speed vision system. First, the dynamic folding performed by a human subject is analyzed in order to extract the necessary ...

In this letter, we propose an efficient and highly versatile loco-manipulation planning for humanoid robots. Loco-manipulation is a key technological brick enabling robots to autonomously perform object transportation by manipulating them. We formulate of the alternation sequencing footsteps grasps as graph search problem with new transition model that allows flexible representation loco-manipu...

In recent years, minimally-invasive surgical systems based on flexible robotic manipulators have met with success. One major advantage of the flexible manipulator approach is its superior safety characteristics as compared to rigid manipulators. However, their soft compliant structure, in combination with internal friction, results in poor position and force regulation which have limited their ...

The Omnid human-collaborative mobile manipulators are an experimental platform for testing control architectures autonomous and multirobot manipulation. An consists of a mecanum-wheel omnidirectional base series-elastic Delta-type parallel manipulator, it is specific implementation broader class collaborative robots (“mocobots”) suitable safe human co-manipulation delicate, flexible, articulate...