Cecilia Laschi - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Cecilia Laschi

This paper presents an integrated approach to tactile perception, both in terms of data acquisiti... more This paper presents an integrated approach to tactile perception, both in terms of data acquisition and data interpretation. In humans, touch sensing is implemented through a number of different sensing elements embedded in the skin. The interpretation of perceived data to the level of detection of basic features, such as material, shape of surface, shape of contact, is achieved by

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part H, Journal of engineering in medicine, 2016

Compression therapy is the cornerstone of treatment in the case of venous leg ulcers. The therapy... more Compression therapy is the cornerstone of treatment in the case of venous leg ulcers. The therapy outcome is strictly dependent on the pressure distribution produced by bandages along the lower limb length. To date, pressure monitoring has been carried out using sensors that present considerable drawbacks, such as single point instead of distributed sensing, no shape conformability, bulkiness and constraints on patient's movements. In this work, matrix textile sensing technologies were explored in terms of their ability to measure the sub-bandage pressure with a suitable temporal and spatial resolution. A multilayered textile matrix based on a piezoresistive sensing principle was developed, calibrated and tested with human subjects, with the aim of assessing real-time distributed pressure sensing at the skin/bandage interface. Experimental tests were carried out on three healthy volunteers, using two different bandage types, from among those most commonly used. Such tests allowe...

Ai & Society, 2008

Research on hybrid bionic systems (HBSs) is still in its infancy but promising results have alrea... more Research on hybrid bionic systems (HBSs) is still in its infancy but promising results have already been achieved in laboratories. Experiments on humans and animals show that artificial devices can be controlled by neural signals. These results suggest that HBS technologies can be employed to restore sensorimotor functionalities in disabled and elderly people. At the same time, HBS research raises ethical concerns related to possible exogenous and endogenous limitations to human autonomy and freedom. The analysis of these concerns requires reflecting on the availability of scientific models accounting for key aspects of sensorimotor coordination and plastic adaptation mechanisms in the brain.

Ieee Robotics Automation Magazine, 2005

Physical Review E, 2016

A self-oscillating gel is a system that generates an autonomous volume oscillation. This oscillat... more A self-oscillating gel is a system that generates an autonomous volume oscillation. This oscillation is powered by the chemical energy of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction, which demonstrates metal ion redox oscillation. A self-oscillating gel is composed of Poly-N-isopropylacrylamide (PNIPAAm) with a metal ion. In this study, we found that the displacement of the volume oscillation in a self-oscillating gel could be controlled by its being subjected to a prestraining process. We also revealed the driving mechanism of the self-oscillating gel from the point of view of thermodynamics. We observed that the polymer-solvent interaction parameter χ is altered by the redox changes to the metal ion incorporated in the self-oscillating gel. The prestraining process leads to changes in χ and changes in enthalpy and entropy when the self-oscillating gel is in a reduced and oxidized state. We found that nonprestrained gel samples oscillate in a poor solution (χ&amp;gt;0.5) and prestrained gel samples oscillate in a good solution (χ&amp;lt;0.5).

Proceedings of the 2015 on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference - GECCO '15, 2015

2015 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2015

The development of robotic devices able to perform manipulation tasks mimicking the human hand ha... more The development of robotic devices able to perform manipulation tasks mimicking the human hand has been assessed on large scale. This work stands in the challenging scenario where soft materials are combined with bio-inspired design in order to develop soft grippers with improved grasping and holding capabilities. We are going to show a low-cost, under-actuated and adaptable soft gripper, highlighting the design and the manufacturing process. In particular, a critical analysis is made among three versions of the gripper with same design and actuation mechanism, but based on different materials. A novel actuation principle has been implemented in both cases, in order to reduce the encumbrance of the entire system and improve its aesthetics. Grasping and holding capabilities have been tested for each device, with target objects varying in shape, size and material. Results highlight synergy between the geometry and the intrinsic properties of the soft material, showing the way to novel design principles for soft grippers.

Microscopy research and technique, Jan 30, 2015

Octopus vulgaris is a cephalopod of the Octopodidae family. It has four pairs of arms and two row... more Octopus vulgaris is a cephalopod of the Octopodidae family. It has four pairs of arms and two rows of suckers which perform many functions, including bending and elongation. For this reason the octopus was chosen as model to develop a new generation of soft-body robots. In order to explain some of the fine structures of the octopus arm in relation to its specific ability, we examined the external and internal structures of O. vulgaris arms in a frozen-hydrated state using cryo-scanning electron microscopy. The arms showed skin with a very complex design that is useful to elongation, and a pore pattern distribution on their surface which is functional to cutaneous oxygen uptake. The analysis of freeze-fractured frozen-hydrated arm samples allowed us to describe the developmental differences in the relative proportion of the areas of axial nerve cord, intrinsic and extrinsic musculature, in relation to the growth of the arms and of the increase in functional capability. In the suckers...

OCEANS 2015 - Genova, 2015

This work presents the design and development of a soft, flexible artificial skin for the detecti... more This work presents the design and development of a soft, flexible artificial skin for the detection of two force ranges, and local/distributed loads discrimination, without computational efforts. Inspiring from human skin and using morphological computation principles for the development, both architecture and mechanical properties of the employed materials play a major role, and an embodied feedback is provided. The preliminary prototype and obtained data are promising for future tactile skins to be directly connected to different kinds of actuators/transducers, depending on the desired application.

This paper describes a first prototype of a cephalopod-like biomimetic aquatic robot. The robot r... more This paper describes a first prototype of a cephalopod-like biomimetic aquatic robot. The robot replicates the ability of cephalopods to travel in the aquatic environment by means of pulsed jet propulsion. In contrast with existing works on pulsed-jet propulsion, in this work the focus is placed in designing a faithful biomimesis of the structural and functional components of the Octopus vulgaris, hence the robot is shaped as an exact copy of these animals and is composed, to a major extent, of soft materials. In addition, the propelling mechanism is driven by a compression/expansion cycle analogous to that found in cephalopods. This work offers a hands-on experience of the swimming biomechanics of chephalopods and an insight into a yet unexplored new mode of aquatic propulsion.

 As opposed to earlier tests, these recordings do not show an inverse correlation between veloci... more  As opposed to earlier tests, these recordings do not show an inverse correlation between velocity of the robot and frequency of pulsation ( . This was attributed to: 1. The mechanism of passive inflation of the mantle, which is dependent on geometry and elasticity of the mantle. This implies that higher thrust occurs when revolution of the gearmotor-rod and inflation timescale match.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2015

ABSTRACT Development of soft robotic devices with grasping capabilities is an active research are... more ABSTRACT Development of soft robotic devices with grasping capabilities is an active research area. The inherent property of soft materials, to distribute contact forces, results in a more effective robot/environment interaction with simpler control. In this paper, a three-finger under-actuated adaptable soft gripper is proposed, highlighting the design and manufacturing process. A novel design and actuation principle have been implemented to obtain the desired grasping abilities, from mechanical properties of materials and structures. Soft materials have been used to make each finger, for a high adaptability of the gripper to different shapes. We implemented an under-actuated mechanism through a wire loop actuation system, that helps achieving passive adaptation during grasping. Passive adaptability allows to drive the device with a reduced number of control parameters. The soft gripper has been lodged into an experimental setup endowed with one actuation unit for the synchron-ous flexion of its fingers. Grasping and holding capabilities have been tested by evaluating the grasp stability with target objects varying in shape, size and material. Adaptability makes this soft device a good application of morphological computation principles in bio-inspired robots design, where proper design of mechanical features simplifies control.

2005 IEEE International Conference on Information Acquisition, 2005

The aim of this paper is to discuss an ideal design procedure for biologically-inspired artificia... more The aim of this paper is to discuss an ideal design procedure for biologically-inspired artificial sensors. The main steps of this procedure are the following: (1) analysis of force and position sensors in animals and humans; (2) design and implementation of biologically-inspired sensors in innovative biorobotic and biomechatronic systems (e.g., antropomorphic robots, animaloids, and prostheses). According to this sequence, the first part of the paper is dedicated to the presentation of some features of force and motion sensors in animals and humans. Then, some applications of biologically-inspired systems to sense force and position in different robots are illustrated and discussed.

Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 2015

This work addresses the inverse kinematics problem of a bioinspired octopus-like manipulator movi... more This work addresses the inverse kinematics problem of a bioinspired octopus-like manipulator moving in three-dimensional space. The bioinspired manipulator has a conical soft structure that confers the ability of twirling around objects as a real octopus arm does. Despite the simple design, the soft conical shape manipulator driven by cables is described by nonlinear differential equations, which are difficult to solve analytically. Since exact solutions of the equations are not available, the Jacobian matrix cannot be calculated analytically and the classical iterative methods cannot be used. To overcome the intrinsic problems of methods based on the Jacobian matrix, this paper proposes a neural network learning the inverse kinematics of a soft octopus-like manipulator driven by cables. After the learning phase, a feed-forward neural network is able to represent the relation between manipulator tip positions and forces applied to the cables. Experimental results show that a desired tip position can be achieved in a short time, since heavy computations are avoided, with a degree of accuracy of 8% relative average error with respect to the total arm length.