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Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

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Related publications (78)

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Learning Motion Reconstruction from Demonstration via Multi-Modal Soft Tactile Sensing

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge, Kieran Daniel Gilday, Cheng Pan

Learning manipulation from demonstration is a key way for humans to teach complex tasks. However, this domain mainly focuses on kinetic teaching, and does not consider imitation of interaction forces which is essential for more contact rich tasks. We propo ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.2024

Behaviour Range Optimization of the Dexterous Robotic Open Parametric Hand

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kieran Daniel Gilday, Robin Carlet

Embodied intelligence could grant soft, robotic manipulators with increased performance in adaptability and dexterity. However, we currently have a lack of tools for the forward design of finger behaviours with high-dimensional morphology. We take an open- ...

IEEE2025

Automation in steep terrain agriculture: an optimal controller to prevent tipping and slipping of tethered robots on slopes

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Max Mirko Polzin

Autonomous robots have the potential to fundamentally transform conventional farming methods, e.g. by enabling economically viable farming of sloped arable land. However, navigation on slopes in harsh conditions is challenging for robots as they must be pr ...

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD2023

Lab2Field transfer of a robotic raspberry harvester enabled by a soft sensorized physical twin

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge

Robotic fruit harvesting requires dexterity to handle delicate crops and development relying upon field testing possible only during the harvesting season. Here we focus on raspberry crops, and explore how the research methodology of harvesting robots can ...

2023

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

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Guanran Pei

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

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

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Hung Hon Cheng

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

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

Daniil Filimonov, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Sareum Kim

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

Complexity and Similarity Metrics for Unsupervised Identification of Programming Methods for Robot Cooking Tasks

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Stefan Ilic

Using robotics to automate complex manipulation tasks such as cooking could offer significant advantages. Robotics could offer improved throughput, provide assistance for those that lack the required mobility or allow for creative robotic chefs. Generating ...

SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG2022

An optical/electronic artificial skin extends the robotic sense to molecular sensing

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Benhui Dai

Artificial skins are essential for bridging sensory gaps between robots and environments, enabling natural and intuitive interactions. While artificial skins can sense stimuli like pressure and stretchability, their capabilities need to be expanded into ch ...

2025

Mechanoreceptive soft robotic molluscoids made of granular hydrogel-based organoelectronics

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

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

Embodied intelligence paradigm for human-robot communication

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Nana Obayashi

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

Heading for the Abyss: Control Strategies for Exploiting Swinging of a Descending Tethered Aerial Robot

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Max Mirko Polzin

The use of aerial vehicles for exploration and data collection has the potential to significantly aid environmental monitoring in environments which are dangerous and hard to navigate. However, within these environments navigation can often be restricted b ...

2023

Improving the Fluency of Robot-Human Interaction Through Embodied Expression of Emotion via Foundation Models

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Nana Obayashi, Yi-Shiun Wu

Fluent human-robot interactions are essential for robots to be accepted and used in social scenarios including education, healthcare, or entertainment. Foundation models and Large Language Models (LLMs) in particular facilitate natural generation of text i ...

Springer Nature2025

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

David Samuel Hardman, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Qinghua Guan, Benhui Dai

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

Into the ice: Exploration and data capturing in glacial moulins by a tethered robot

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Max Mirko Polzin

Glacial moulins (cylindrical meltwater drainage shafts) provide valuable insights into glacier dynamics, but are inaccessible and hazardous environments for humans to study. Exploring them using passive sensor probes has revealed their complex geometry, wh ...

Wiley2024

Toward Long-Lasting Large-Scale Soft Robots: The Durability Challenge in Architectured Materials

Zhenshan Bing, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Francesco Stella, Qinghua Guan, Guanran Pei, Omar Hani Mokhtar Ahmed Meebed

Soft robots promise groundbreaking advancements across various industries. However, soft robots are susceptible to wear, fatigue, and material degradation. Their durability and long-term reliability are often overlooked, despite being critical for the succ ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.2024

Piecewise Affine Curvature model: a reduced-order model for soft robot-environment interaction beyond PCC

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Francesco Stella, Qinghua Guan

Soft robot are celebrated for their propensity to enable compliant and complex robot-environment interactions. Soft robotic manipulators, or slender continuum structure robots have the potential to exploit these interactions to enable new exploration and m ...

IEEE2023

Bio-inspired Reflex System for Learning Visual Information for Resilient Robotic Manipulation

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge

Humans have an incredible sense of self-preservation that is both instilled, and also learned through experience. One system which contributes to this is the pain and reflex system which both minimizes damage through involuntary reflex ac- tions and also s ...

2022

Data-driven Simulation Framework for Expressive Piano Playing by Anthropomorphic Hand with Variable Passive Properties

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

The expressive piano playing generally requires a delicate control over the keystroke by considering passive dynamics of the hand and piano keyboard. It becomes even more challenging when the passive properties change during the performance. In this paper, ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.2022

Control and Morphology Optimization of Passive Asymmetric Structures for Robotic Swimming

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge, Nana Obayashi

Aquatic creatures exhibit remarkable adaptations of their body to efficiently interact with the surrounding fluid. The tight coupling between their morphology, motion, and the environment are highly complex but serves as a valuable example when creating bi ...

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC2023