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Francesco Stella

Related publications (9)

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The control possibilities for soft robots have long been hindered by the need for reliable methods to estimate their configuration. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) can solve this challenge, but they are affected by well-known drift issues. This letter pr ...

Piscataway2024

Novel technologies, fabrication methods, controllers and computational methods are rapidly advancing the capabilities of soft robotics. This is creating the need for design techniques and methodologies that are suited for the multi-disciplinary nature of s ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2023

Prescribing Cartesian Stiffness of Soft Robots by Co-Optimization of Shape and Segment-Level Stiffness

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Francesco Stella

Soft robots aim to revolutionize how robotic systems interact with the environment thanks to their inherent compliance. Some of these systems are even able to modulate their physical softness. However, simply equipping a robot with softness will not genera ...

MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC2023

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Elephants and other animals heavily rely on the sense of smell to operate. Soft robots would also benefit from an artificial sense of smell, which could be helpful in typical soft robotic tasks such as search and rescue, pipe inspection, and all the tasks ...

IEEE2023

Piecewise Affine Curvature model: a reduced-order model for soft robot-environment interaction beyond PCC

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Francesco Stella, Qinghua Guan

Soft robot are celebrated for their propensity to enable compliant and complex robot-environment interactions. Soft robotic manipulators, or slender continuum structure robots have the potential to exploit these interactions to enable new exploration and m ...

IEEE2023

Fully exploiting soft robots' capabilities requires devising strategies that can accurately control their movements with the limited amount of control sources available. This task is challenging for reasons including the hard-to-model dynamics, the system' ...

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC2023

Controlling Maneuverability of a Bio-Inspired Swimming Robot Through Morphological Transformation

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge, Francesco Stella, Nana Obayashi

Biology provides many examples of where body adaption can be used to achieve a change in functionality. The feather star, an underwater crinoid which uses feather arms to locomote and feed, is one such system; it releases its arms to distract prey and vary ...

2022

An experimental validation of the polynomial curvature model: identification and optimal control of a soft underwater tentacle

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Francesco Stella, Nana Obayashi

The control possibilities for soft robots have long been hindered by the lack of accurate yet computationally treatable dynamic models of soft structures. Polynomial curvature models propose a solution to this quest for continuum slender structures. Nevert ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.2022

Shape estimation of soft robotic systems is challenging due to the range of deformations that can be achieved, and the limited availability of physically compatible sensors. We propose a method of reconstruction using Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs), whi ...

Springer Verlag2021