THU Soft Robotics Research Group

2024
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February, 2024
"Monolithic Soft Fibrous Valves Capable of Generating Air Pressure Cutoff, Maintaining, and Oscillation for Pneumatic Systems" is accepted for publication in Advanced Materials Technologies. Congratulations to Zhonghan Lin and the coauthors!


2023
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December, 2023
"Control and Implementation of a Fluidic Elastomer Actuator for Active Suppression of Hand Tremor" is accepted for publication in the IEEE Robotics & Automation Letters. Congratulations to Yixin Wang and the coauthors!
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"Design and Implementation of an Underactuated Gripper with Enhanced Shape Adaptability and Lateral Stiffness through Semi-Active Multi-Degree-of-Freedom Endoskeletons" is accepted for publication in the International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR). Congratulations to Yafeng Cui and the coauthors!
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November, 2023
Songwen's paper is selected to be featured on the back cover of Advanced Functional Materials! Congratulations to Songwen Jiang and the coauthors!
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September, 2023
Congratulations to Yafeng Cui for his successful defense of his Ph.D. thesis!
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September, 2023
Congratulations to Songwen Jiang for his successful defense of his Ph.D. thesis!
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July, 2023
"High-speed rotary motor for multi-domain operations driven by resonant dielectric elastomer actuators" is accepted for publication in Advanced Intelligent Systems. Congratulations to Boyuan Du and the coauthors!
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July, 2023
"Soft Pocket Pump for Multi-Medium Transportation via an Active Tubular Diaphragm" is accepted for publication in Advanced Functional Materials. Congratulations to Songwen Jiang and the coauthors!
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June, 2023
Dr. Chao Tang will join the Ocean University of China (OUC) as an associate professor. Congratulations!
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May, 2023
Yu Herng Tan, Songwen Jiang, Yafeng Cui, Yixin Wang, Yiyi Pan, Zhonghan Lin, Xuguang Dong, Xin An, and Boyuan Du presented their works at workshops of ICRA 2023, London, UK! 
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May, 2023
Qi Shao presented his work at ICRA 2023, London, UK! 
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May, 2023
Prof. Zhao received Tsinghua Early Career Award (清华大学学术新人奖). Congratulations! 
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May, 2023
Dr. Liang Zhou will join our group as a postdoctoral researcher. Welcome! 
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May, 2023
Our review paper entitled “A review on high-frequency dielectric elastomer actuators: materials, dynamics, and applications” is accepted for publication in Advanced Intelligent Systems! Congratulations to Chao Tang and the coauthors!
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January, 2023
We were awarded the "Wiley China Open Science High Contribution Author", for our paper "An Anthropomorphic Musculoskeletal System with Soft Joint and Multifilament Pneumatic Artificial Muscles" published in the ADVANCED INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS ranks among the top five most downloaded articles published by Chinese authors in the third quarter of 2022 within three months!
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January, 2023
Zhonghan Lin and Yiyi Pan both won the second prize in the academic presentation 2022 held by the State Key Laboratory of Tribology. Congratulations!


2022
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December, 2022
"Active-Cooling-in-the-Loop Controller Design and Implementation for an SMA-Driven Soft Robotic Tentacle" is accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Robotics. Congratulations to Xin An and the coauthors!
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December, 2022
Yiyi's paper is selected to be featured on the front cover of the latest issue of Soft Matter! Congratulations to Yiyi Pan and the coauthors!
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November, 2022
Jingyi's paper is selected to be featured on the inside back cover of the latest issue of Advanced Materials Technologies! Congratulations to Jingyi Zhou and the coauthors!
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October, 2022
"Stretchable and Conformable Stiffness-Variable Device through Electrorheological Fluids" is accepted for publication in Soft Matter. Congratulations to Yiyi Pan and the coauthors!
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October, 2022
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as an Associate Editor for the 6th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft 2023).
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October, 2022
"Speeding Up Soft Pneumatic Actuators through Pressure and Flow Dynamics Modeling and Optimization" is accepted for publication in Extreme Mechanics Letters. Congratulations to Yixin Wang and the coauthors!
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October, 2022
Zhonghan's paper is selected to be featured on the inside cover of the latest issue of Advanced Intelligent Systems! Congratulations to Zhonghan Lin and the coauthors!
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October, 2022
Congratulations to Songwen, Jingyi, Yiyi, Yafeng, Boyuan, and Yixin for winning scholarships from the university and the department!
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September, 2022
Congratulations to Yafeng and Yixin for winning the NSK Best Paper Award in the department!
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September, 2022
"Untethered Robotic Millipede Driven by Low-Pressure Microfluidic Actuators for Multi-Terrain Exploration" is accepted for publication in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. Congratulations to Qi Shao and the coauthors!
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July, 2022
"An Anthropomorphic Musculoskeletal System with Soft Joint and Multifilament Pneumatic Artificial Muscles" is accepted for publication in Advanced Intelligent Systems. Congratulations to Zhonghan Lin and the coauthors!
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June, 2022
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as a Keynote Speaker at the 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2022).
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June, 2022
"Conformable and Compact Multi-Axis Tactile Sensor for Human and Robotic Grasping via Anisotropic Waveguides" is accepted for publication in Advanced Materials Technologies. Congratulations to Jingyi Zhou and the coauthors!
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May, 2022
Dr. Yu Herng Tan​​ wins the Shuimu Tsinghua Scholar Postdoctoral Fellowship for her postdoctoral research in Tsinghua. Congratulations and welcome!
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May, 2022
"A pipeline inspection robot for navigating tubular environments in the sub-centimeter scale" is published in Science Robotics. Congratulations to Dr. Chao Tang and the coauthors!​
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May, 2022
Yafeng Cui receives the Best Poster Award at the Twelve University Union Mechanical Seminar. Congratulations!
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April, 2022
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as an invited speaker at the workshop "Energy Storage and Delivery in Robotics Systems" in ICRA 2022.
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April, 2022
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as an invited speaker at the "Symposium SF13—From Actuators and Energy Harvesting Storage Systems to Living Machines" in 2022 MRS Spring Meeting.
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January, 2022
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as an Associate Editor (AE) for Wearable Technologies which is the first journal dedicated to publishing original research, review articles and industrial developments related to wearable devices. ​
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​January, 2022
"Development of Modular Multi-Degree-of-Freedom Hybrid Joints and Robotic Flexible Legs via Fluidic Elastomer Actuators" is accepted for publication in Smart Materials and Structures (SMS). Congratulations to Xuguang Dong and the coauthors!​
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​January, 2022
Dr. Chao Tang and Jingyi Zhou both won the second prize in the academic presentation 2022 held by the State Key Laboratory of Tribology. Congratulations!

 
2021
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December, 2021
Prof. Huichan Zhao was awarded the Xiongyoulun Outstanding Youth Award (熊有伦智湖优秀青年学者奖).  Congratulations!
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November, 2021
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as an Associate Editor (AE) for RoboSoft 2022.
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October, 2021
Prof. Huichan Zhao was awarded the 2021 Damo Academy Young Fellow (达摩院青橙奖). Congratulations!
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October, 2021
"Long-Life-Cycle and Damage-Recovery Artificial Muscles via Controllable and Observable Self-Clearing Process" is accepted for publication in Advanced Engineering Materials (AEM). Congratulations to Songwen Jiang and the coauthors!
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August, 2021
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as a guest associate editor for the special issue "How Machines Interact with Their Environment: Embodied Intelligence, Soft Robots, and Beyond" in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI. Other organizers include Prof. Michael Wehner from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Prof. Yong-Lae Park from Seoul National University (SNU), Prof. Helmut Hauser from the University of Bristol, and Prof. Stephan Rudykh from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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July, 2021
"Soft, Tough, and Fast Polyacrylate Dielectric Elastomer for Non-magnetic Motor" is accepted for publication in Nature Communications.
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July, 2021
We will hold the Symposium SB03 -- Robotic Materials for Advanced Machine Intelligence at the 2022 MRS Spring Meeting which will take place on May 8-13 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Other organizers include Prof. Ryan Truby from Northwestern University, Prof. Mihai Duduta from the University of Toronto, and Prof. Barbara Mazzolai from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.
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July, 2021
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO) which is a top journal in the robotics field. 
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July, 2021
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as the general co-chair for The 14th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications (ICIRA 2021). 
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June, 2021
Prof. Huichan Zhao is promoted to Associate Professor (tenure-track), Congratulations!
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June, 2021
Boyuan Du wins the Future Researchers Scholarship (未来学者奖学金) for his Ph.D. study in Tsinghua. Congratulations, Boyuan!
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May, 2021
We will hold a workshop named "SoRoSE: Soft Robot State Estimation" at IROS 2021 on September 27th, 14:00–16:00 CEST. Other organizers include Prof. Chen Feng from NYU, Prof. Wenzhen Yuan from CMU, and Dr. Moritz Bächer from Disney Research.
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May, 2021
Songwen receives the Best Poster Award at the Tsinghua-Peking-Beihang Union Mechanical Seminar. Congratulations!
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April, 2021
For the coming RoBoSoft 2021 hosted by Yale University, Prof. Zhao will serve as an invited keynote speaker, Jingyi Zhou will serve as a session chair, Xuguang Dong will give a poster presentation, and several other group members will attend the conference virtually. 
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February, 2021
"Enhancing the Universality of a Pneumatic Gripper via Continuously Adjustable Initial Grasp Postures" is accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO). Congratulations to Yafeng Cui and the coauthors!
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February, 2021
"Increasing the Payload and Terrain Adaptivity of an Untethered Crawling Robot via Soft-Rigid Coupled Linear Actuators​" is accepted for publication in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). Congratulations to Xuguang Dong and the coauthors!
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February, 2021
"Analytical Modeling and Optimization of a Corrugated Soft Pneumatic Finger Considering the Performance of Pinch and Power Grasps" is accepted for publication in Extreme Mechanics Letters (EML).
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January, 2021
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as a guest associate editor for the special issue "Soft Robot State Estimation" in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI.
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January, 2021
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as a review editor for the area of Bio-Inspired Robotics in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI.

 
2020
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December, 2020
Prof. Huichan Zhao was awarded the 2020 Excellent Mentor Award (良师益友) in Tsinghua University. Congratulations!
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December, 2020
Yafeng Cui receives the highest award for Tsinghua students--Tsinghua Top-Grade Scholarship (清华大学研究生特等奖学金), which is annually awarded to only 10 best students out of 34000 graduates in Tsinghua. Congratulations!
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December, 2020
Prof. Huichan Zhao has been named as a member of the Innovators Under 35 China 2020 (MIT TR35-China) by MIT Technology Review. Congratulations! 
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November, 2020
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as an Associate Editor (AE) for RoboSoft 2021.
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August, 2020
Trivoramai Jiralerspong​​ wins the Chinese Government Scholarship (CGS, 中国政府奖学金) for her Ph.D. study in Tsinghua. Congratulations, Trivoramai!
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August, 2020
Jingyi Zhou, Songwen Jiang, Zhonghan Lin, Xuguang Dong and Rouven Glauert receive the Tsinghua Student Laboratory Construction Contribution Award ​(清华大学学生实验室建设贡献奖). Big thanks to all of you, and Congratulations!
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June, 2020
Xin An wins the Future Researchers Scholarship (未来学者奖学金) for his Ph.D. study in Tsinghua. Congratulations, Xin!
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June, 2020
Yiyi Pan and Songwen Jiang pass their Q-exam. Congratulations!
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May, 2020
Prof. Huichan Zhao is featured as the outstanding reviewer for the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics.

 
2019
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November, 2019
Prof. Huichan Zhao will serve as an Associate Editor (AE) for RoboSoft 2020.
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August, 2019
Prof. Huichan Zhao has been invited to join the editorial board of the journal PLOS ONE, serves for the area of ROBOTICS.

 
2018
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August, 2018
Prof. Huichan Zhao has been named as a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 China 2018, in the category of Science.
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July, 2018
Dr. Huichan Zhao joined Tsinghua University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.