Beyond Intelligence: The Hardware Limitation in Robotics In robotics, software intelligence has advanced faster than hardware capability. Artificial intelligence can plan, reason, and simulate, but physical execution still depends on motor–gearbox actuators designed decades ago. This imbalance creates a bottleneck:…
Pushing the Limits of Unpowered Systems Robotics is reaching new frontiers, with innovative designs reshaping how machines and humans interact. Mechanically adaptive robotics offers a path to enhancing mobility without relying on external power sources like motors or pneumatic actuators.…
Optimal Control for Compliant Robots Compliant actuation, inspired by biological systems, offers robots mechanical adaptability and energy efficiency, making them suitable for tasks requiring both precision and power. However, controlling robots with compliant actuators is inherently challenging due to the…
Enabling Robots to Learn Like Humans Robotic intelligence is evolving beyond pre-programmed control, shifting towards systems that learn through real-world experience. A key challenge in this transformation is enabling robots to improve their performance on complex tasks—such as walking or…
Uncovering Human Performance Limits Have you ever wondered how much faster humans could run with just a little help from physics? A new twist on the old idea of spring-driven shoes may hold the answer. By storing and releasing energy…
The Vision of Faster Running with Robo-Boots Can physics support running as fast as cycling? A recent news article explores spring-driven robotic exoskeletons, or Robo-boots, as a potential way to achieve this. By storing and releasing energy efficiently, these boots…
Unlocking Speed: The Future of Spring-driven Running Devices Human mobility has long been shaped by biomechanics and physics, but new research suggests that running speeds could far exceed current records with the right mechanical assistance. Inspired by physics-driven models, we…
Welcome to the 19th IEEE/RAS-EMBS International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR 2025), the biannual conference on theoretical and experimental issues in the fields of Rehabilitation Robotics and Neuroscience. ICORR covers several disciplines with both theoretical and experimental challenges in robotics,…
The 10th iteration of the IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics – BioRob2024 – represents a collaborative endeavor between two IEEE Societies: Robotics and Automation (RAS) and Engineering in Medicine and Biology (EMBS). BioRob delves into both theoretical…
The Robotics: Science and Systems (R:SS) conference has a long history of bringing together researchers in all areas of robotics from around the world for an engaging and focused week of single-track presentations, workshops, poster sessions, tutorials, and fun. Dr.…
Dr. Braun was awarded the prestigious MOE AcRF Tier 2 academic research funding by the Singaporean Ministry of Education. The three years project (2017-2020) will support Dr. Braun in developing new optimal control methods. The MOE AcRF Tier 2 grant…
Speed records have a strange, primal allure. If an angry elephant is chasing you, would you be fast enough to escape? What about a bear or a black mamba? In any of these cases, your chances are not very good…
Compliant Actuation for Human Performance Augmentation One way to imagine human augmentation is to consider an energetically active robot that supplements muscle power with external energy. Another way to imagine human augmentation is to consider solely human-powered energetically passive devices;…
Towards an Analytical Theory of Variable Stiffness Actuator Design While state-of-the-art compliantly actuated robots are able to achieve previously unprecedented agility, robustness, and adaptability, they operate with low efficiency. Energy-efficient compliant actuators are missing ingredients, and key enablers of next-generation robotic systems: prosthetic devices, orthotic devices, and wearable exoskeletons. However, despite…
Constrained Optimization for Robot Control Application The benefit of using dynamic optimization for the control of industrial robots has been recognized by the robotics community. However, many of the methods for dynamic optimization use heuristic treatment of physical constraints, limitations…
The IEEE/RAS-EMBS International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR 2015) is a biennial conference addressing theoretical and experimental issues in the fields of rehabilitation robotics and neuroscience applied to healthcare. In 2015, the conference was held in Singapore and hosted by…