Publications de Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

Synergy-based robotic quadruped leveraging passivity for natural intelligence and behavioural diversity

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Francesco Stella

Quadrupedal animals show remarkable capabilities in traversing diverse terrains and display a range of behaviours and gait patterns. Achieving similar performance by exploiting the natural dynamics of the system is a key goal for robotics researchers. Here ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2025

Mod-VSA: A Modular Variable Stiffness Actuator for Multi-fingered Robotic Hands

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge

Regulating contact forces is crucial for robotic manipulation, but achieving stiffness variation in multi-fingered hands is challenging due to design complexity. This work presents Mod-VSA, a modular variable stiffness actuator for multi-fingered tendon-dr ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.2025

Robotic optimization of powdered beverages leveraging computer vision and Bayesian optimization

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

The growing demand for innovative research in the food industry is driving the adoption of robots in large-scale experimentation, a shift that offers increased precision, repeatability, and efficiency in product manufacturing and evaluation. This paper add ...

2025

Soft Pneumatic Gripper With Interchangeable Fingertips by Using Reversible Polymers: The GraspBerry, a Raspberry Picking Case Study

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge

Fingerprints primarily enhance grasping by modulating friction, as the surface pattern affects the friction needed for effective grasping and manipulation. A versatile gripper was developed with a more realistic distal phalange inspired by the human index ...

2025

Reliable and robust robotic handling of microplates via computer vision and touch feedback

Francesco Stellacci, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

Laboratory automation requires reliable and precise handling of microplates, but existing robotic systems often struggle to achieve this, particularly when navigating around the dynamic and variable nature of laboratory environments. This work introduces a ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2025

Spatially distributed biomimetic compliance enables robust anthropomorphic robotic manipulation

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge

The impressive capabilities of humans to robustly perform manipulation stems from compliant interactions, enabled by the structure and materials distributed in the hands. We propose that mimicking this spatially distributed compliance in an anthropomorphic ...

Springer Science and Business Media LLC2025

A Versatile Neural Network Configuration Space Planning and Control Strategy for Modular Soft Robot Arms

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Qinghua Guan

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)2025

Mechanoreceptive soft robotic molluscoids made of granular hydrogel-based organoelectronics

Esther Amstad, Nana Obayashi, Lorenzo Lucherini, Francesca Bono, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

The viscoelasticity of many soft polymers renders flexible sensors susceptible to hysteresis and signal drift that limit their accuracy. To reduce the impact of viscoelasticity on the signal without compromising the softness of the material, we introduce e ...

2025

3D printing of self-healing longevous multi-sensory e-skin

Esther Amstad, Francesca Bono, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Sudong Lee

Electrically conductive hydrogels can simulate the sensory capabilities of natural skin, such that they are well-suited for electronic skin. Unfortunately, currently available electronic skin cannot detect multiple stimuli in a selective manner. Inspired b ...

Springer Science and Business Media LLC2025

Robotic locomotion through active and passive morphological adaptation in extreme outdoor environments

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Max Mirko Polzin, Qinghua Guan

Robotic locomotion has shown substantial advancements, yet robots still lack the versatility and agility shown by animals navigating complex terrains. This limits their applicability in complex environments where they could be highly beneficial. Unlike exi ...

AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE2025

Plant-inspired decentralized controller for robust orientation control of soft robotic manipulators

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

Due to the complexity of deformations in soft manipulators, achieving precise control of their orientation is particularly challenging, especially in the presence of external disturbances and human interactions. Inspired by the decentralized growth mechani ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2025

Environmentally-Driven Morphogenesis of Reconfigurable Floating Structures using Markov Models

Nana Obayashi, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge

The morphology and structure play a crucial role in shaping the behavior and functionality of both biological and robotic systems. In this work, we are inspired by morphogenesis, a fundamental biological process that encompasses the emergence of organs and ...

IEEE2025

Octopus-Inspired Swimming Robot with Web-Coupled Multi-Arm Coordination

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

In nature, aquatic animals leverage the interaction between their soft bodies and surrounding fluid to achieve efficient locomotion; for animals with multiple limbs, this requires careful coordination among the limbs. The octopus, with its tentacles and fl ...

IEEE2025

Determining Feasible Cable Attachment Locations for Cable-Driven-Parallel Robot

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPRs) offer significant potential in applications requiring large workspaces. However, determining the locations of the cable attachment points (or called the cable exit points) remains a critical design challenge. This work ...

Springer Science and Business Media B.V.2025

Lattice Structure Musculoskeletal Robots: Harnessing Programmable Geometric Topology and Anisotropy

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Qinghua Guan

Natural musculoskeletal systems combine soft tissues and rigid structures to achieve diverse mechanical behaviors that are both adaptive and precise. Inspired by these systems, we propose a programming method for designing bioinspired soft-rigid robotic st ...

AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE2025

FLEXIV: Adaptive Locomotion via Morphological Changes in a Flexible Track Vehicle

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

Flexible and adaptive tracked robots show the capacity to navigate in unstructured terrain, with a passive adaption of the track or a morphology change for terrain adaptation. Extending the concept to one in which the morphology can be actively changed has ...

2025

Polynomial Curvature Model for IMU-Based Proprioception in Soft Robotic Manipulators Under External Forces

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

Due to its structural flexibility and compliance in motion, the soft manipulator shows significant potential and application prospects in robot-human and environment interaction fields. However, its theoretically infinite degrees of freedom in deformation ...

IEEE2025

Embodied manipulation with past and future morphologies through an open parametric hand design

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kieran Daniel Gilday

A human-shaped robotic hand offers unparalleled versatility and fine motor skills, enabling it to perform a broad spectrum of tasks with precision, power, and robustness. Across the paleontological record and animal kingdom, we see a wide range of alternat ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)2025

Embodied intelligence paradigm for human-robot communication

Nana Obayashi, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

Animals leverage their full embodiment to achieve multimodal, redundant, and subtle communication. To achieve the same for robots, they must similarly exploit their brain-body-environment interactions or their embodied intelligence. To advance this approac ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)2025

Automated Benchmarking of Variable‐Property Soft Robotic Fingertips to Enable Task‐Optimized Sensor Selection

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Qinghua Guan

Tactile fingertips are a vital component of biological dexterity, where they convey information from the environment through our sensory systems. Similarly, sensorized robotic fingertips are needed to unlock robotic dexterity, versatility, and diverse inte ...

Wiley2025