Robotics

We aim to create a hopping mechanism for a small-scale, one-legged, untethered hopping robot.

In this paper, we present the design process of these modules and demonstrate their efficacy by implementing a “grab and move” user interface for posing the robot link by link.

We present a new type of hydrostatic transmission that uses a hybrid air-water configuration, analogous to N+1 cable-tendon transmissions, using N hydraulic lines and 1 pneumatic line for a system with N degrees of freedom (DOFs).

VertiGo is a wall-climbing robot that is capable of transitioning from the ground to the wall, created in collaboration between Disney Research Zurich and ETH.

The purpose of this research is the development of a soft skin module with a built-in airtight cavity in which air pressure can be sensed.

In this paper, we examine a novel biologically-inspired control method, emulating antagonistic muscle pairs based on a nonlinear Hill model.

In this paper, we develop a thermomechanical and thermoelectric model of SCP actuators, and examine their controllability.

This paper presents an iterative approach for learning hardware models and optimizing policies with as few hardware experiments as possible.