Journal: Science Robotics

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Publisher

AAAS

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ISSN

2470-9476

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2017 - 2019182020 - 202539
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Publications 1 - 10 of 57
  • Wireless flow-powered miniature robot capable of traversing tubular structures
    Item type: Journal Article
    Hong, Chong; Wu, Yingdan; Wang, Che; et al. (2024)
    Science Robotics
    Wireless millimeter-scale robots capable of navigating through fluid-flowing tubular structures hold substantial potential for inspection, maintenance, or repair use in nuclear, industrial, and medical applications. However, prevalent reliance on external powering constrains these robots’ operational range and applicable environments. Alternatives with onboard powering must trade off size, functionality, and operation duration. Here, we propose a wireless millimeter-scale wheeled robot capable of using environmental flows to power and actuate its long-distance locomotion through complex pipelines. The flow-powering module can convert flow energy into mechanical energy, achieving an impeller speed of up to 9595 revolutions per minute, accompanied by an output power density of 11.7 watts per cubic meter and an efficiency of 33.7%. A miniature gearbox module can further transmit the converted mechanical energy into the robot’s locomotion system, allowing the robot to move against water flow at an average rate of up to 1.05 meters per second. The robot’s motion status (moving against/with flow or pausing) can be switched using an external magnetic field or an onboard mechanical regulator, contingent on different proposed control designs. In addition, we designed kirigami-based soft wheels for adaptive locomotion. The robot can move against flows of various substances within pipes featuring complex geometries and diverse materials. Solely powered by flow, the robot can transport cylindrical payloads with a diameter of up to 55% of the pipe’s diameter and carry devices such as an endoscopic camera for pipeline inspection, a wireless temperature sensor for environmental temperature monitoring, and a leak-stopper shell for infrastructure maintenance.
  • A professional slackliner robot
    Item type: Other Journal Item
    Mintchev, Stefano (2021)
    Science Robotics
  • Light-driven carbon nitride microswimmers with propulsion in biological and ionic media and responsive on-demand drug delivery
    Item type: Journal Article
    Sridhar, Varun; Podjaski, Filip; Alapan, Yunus; et al. (2022)
    Science Robotics
    We propose two-dimensional poly(heptazine imide) (PHI) carbon nitride microparticles as light-driven microswimmers in various ionic and biological media. Their high-speed (15 to 23 micrometer per second; 9.5 ± 5.4 body lengths per second) swimming in multicomponent ionic solutions with concentrations up to 5 M and without dedicated fuels is demonstrated, overcoming one of the bottlenecks of previous light-driven microswimmers. Such high ion tolerance is attributed to a favorable interplay between the particle’s textural and structural nanoporosity and optoionic properties, facilitating ionic interactions in solutions with high salinity. Biocompatibility of these microswimmers is validated by cell viability tests with three different cell lines and primary cells. The nanopores of the swimmers are loaded with a model cancer drug, doxorubicin (DOX), resulting in a high (185%) loading efficiency without passive release. Controlled drug release is reported under different pH conditions and can be triggered on-demand by illumination. Light-triggered, boosted release of DOX and its active degradation products are demonstrated under oxygen-poor conditions using the intrinsic, environmentally sensitive and light-induced charge storage properties of PHI, which could enable future theranostic applications in oxygen-deprived tumor regions. These organic PHI microswimmers simultaneously address the current light-driven microswimmer challenges of high ion tolerance, fuel-free high-speed propulsion in biological media, biocompatibility, and controlled on-demand cargo release toward their biomedical, environmental, and other potential applications.
  • Attention-based map encoding for learning generalized legged locomotion
    Item type: Journal Article
    He , Junzhe; Zhang, Chong; Jenelten , Fabian; et al. (2025)
    Science Robotics
    Dynamic locomotion of legged robots is a critical yet challenging topic in expanding the operational range of mobile robots. It requires precise planning when possible footholds are sparse, robustness against uncertainties and disturbances, and generalizability across diverse terrains. Although traditional model-based controllers excel at planning on complex terrains, they struggle with real-world uncertainties. Learning-based controllers offer robustness to such uncertainties but often lack precision on terrains with sparse steppable areas. Hybrid methods achieve enhanced robustness on sparse terrains by combining both methods but are computationally demanding and constrained by the inherent limitations of model-based planners. To achieve generalized legged locomotion on diverse terrains while preserving the robustness of learning-based controllers, this paper proposes an attention-based map encoding conditioned on robot proprioception, which is trained as part of the controller using reinforcement learning. We show that the network learns to focus on steppable areas for future footholds when the robot dynamically navigates diverse and challenging terrains. We synthesized behaviors that exhibited robustness against uncertainties while enabling precise and agile traversal of sparse terrains. In addition, our method offers a way to interpret the topographical perception of a neural network. We have trained two controllers for a 12-degrees-of-freedom quadrupedal robot and a 23-degrees-of-freedom humanoid robot and tested the resulting controllers in the real world under various challenging indoor and outdoor scenarios, including ones unseen during training.
  • Sight Guide demonstrates robotics-inspired vision assistance at the Cybathlon
    Item type: Review Article
    Pfreundschuh , Patrick; Cioffi , Giovanni; von Einem, Cornelius; et al. (2025)
    Science Robotics
    A mobile-robotics-based navigation and perception system guided a visually impaired pilot through complex tasks at Cybathlon.
  • Magnetic quadrupole assemblies with arbitrary shapes and magnetizations
    Item type: Journal Article
    Gu, Hongri; Boehler, Quentin; Ahmed, Daniel; et al. (2019)
    Science Robotics
  • New materials for next-generation robots
    Item type: Other Journal Item
    Fischer, Peer; Nelson, Bradley J.; Yang, Guang-Zhong (2018)
    Science Robotics
  • A decade retrospective of medical robotics research from 2010 to 2020
    Item type: Review Article
    Dupont, Pierre E.; Nelson, Bradley J.; Goldfarb, Michael; et al. (2021)
    Science Robotics
    Robotics is a forward-looking discipline. Attention is focused on identifying the next grand challenges. In an applied field such as medical robotics, however, it is important to plan the future based on a clear understanding of what the research community has recently accomplished and where this work stands with respect to clinical needs and commercialization. This Review article identifies and analyzes the eight key research themes in medical robotics over the past decade. These thematic areas were identified using search criteria that identified the most highly cited papers of the decade. Our goal for this Review article is to provide an accessible way for readers to quickly appreciate some of the most exciting accomplishments in medical robotics over the past decade; for this reason, we have focused only on a small number of seminal papers in each thematic area. We hope that this article serves to foster an entrepreneurial spirit in researchers to reduce the widening gap between research and translation.
  • Progress in robotics for combating infectious diseases
    Item type: Review Article
    Gao, Anzhu; Murphy, Robin R.; Chen, Weidong; et al. (2021)
    Science Robotics
    The world was unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, and recovery is likely to be a long process. Robots have long been heralded to take on dangerous, dull, and dirty jobs, often in environments that are unsuitable for humans. Could robots be used to fight future pandemics? We review the fundamental requirements for robotics for infectious disease management and outline how robotic technologies can be used in different scenarios, including disease prevention and monitoring, clinical care, laboratory automation, logistics, and maintenance of socioeconomic activities. We also address some of the open challenges for developing advanced robots that are application oriented, reliable, safe, and rapidly deployable when needed. Last, we look at the ethical use of robots and call for globally sustained efforts in order for robots to be ready for future outbreaks.
  • Magnetically actuated microrobots as a platform for stem cell transplantation
    Item type: Journal Article
    Jeon, Sungwoong; Kim, Sangwon; Ha, Shinwon; et al. (2019)
    Science Robotics
Publications 1 - 10 of 57