Soft robotics

Summary

Soft robotics is a subfield of robotics that concerns the design, control, and fabrication of robots composed of compliant materials, instead of rigid links. In contrast to rigid-bodied robots built from metals, ceramics and hard plastics, the compliance of soft robots can improve their safety when working in close contact with humans. Types and designs The goal of soft robotics is the design and construction of robots with physically flexible bodies and electronics. Sometimes softness is limited to part of the machine. For example, rigid-bodied robotic arms can employ soft end effectors to gently grab and manipulate delicate or irregularly shaped objects. Most rigid-bodied mobile robots also strategically employ soft components, such as foot pads to absorb shock or springy joints to store/release elastic energy. However, the field of soft robotics generally leans toward machines that are predominately or entirely soft. Robots with entirely soft bodies have tremendous p

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_robotics

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Soft Pneumatic Actuators for Legged Locomotion

Yixin Bai, Juan Manuel Florez Marin, Jamie Paik, Benjamin Shih

Search and rescue robots are being used more frequently to access hazardous environments to assess situations and locate survivors. There are a wide range of existing mobile platforms for various situations and environments, but these robots are typically bulky, heavy or expensive, limiting their widespread and practical use in case of disaster mitigation. Also, like most robots, locomotive robots have explicit design criteria, subsequent physical parameters, and control schemes that do not leave much room for improvisation nor robustness on unknown environments. Unconventional silicone rubber-based soft pneumatic actuators (SPA) robots could offer an alter- native actuation solution to such problems: these soft robots are adjustable, disposable, and easy to fabricate, naturally conforming to the unknown environment. In the paper, a palm- sized soft legged robot is proposed to verify the feasibility of such applications.

2014

Highly Stretchable Flame-Retardant Skin for Soft Robotics with Hydrogel-Montmorillonite-Based Translucent Matrix

Hritwick Banerjee

Flame-retardant coatings are crucial for intelligent systems operating in high-temperature (300-800 degrees C) scenarios, which typically involve multi-joint discrete or continuous kinematic systems. These multi-segment motion generation systems call for conformable yet resilient skin for dexterous work, including firefighting, packaging inflammable substances, encapsulating energy storage devices, and preventing from burning. In fire scenes, a flame-retardant soft robot shall protect integrated electronic components safely and work for navigation and surveillance effectively. Here, we establish fire-resistant robotic mechanisms with montmorillonite (MMT)-biocompatible hydrogel skin, offering effective flame retardancy (similar to 78 degrees C surface temperature after 3 min in fire) and high post-fire stretchability (similar to 360% uniaxial tensile strain). Fatigue test results in the MMT-hydrogel polymer matrix to portray a change in post-fire energy consumption of similar to 21% (between the first cycle and the 200th cycle), further indicating robustness. MMT-hydrogel synthetic skin medium is then applied to everyday household items and electronics, offering appealing protections in fire scenes (

MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC2021

Stiffness variation and real-time position feedback are critical for any robotic system but most importantly for active and wearable devices to interact with the user and environment. Currently, for compact sizes, there is a lack of solutions bringing high-fidelity feedback and maintaining design and functional integrity. In this work, we propose a novel minimal clutch with integrated stiffness variation and real-time position feedback whose performance surpasses conventional jamming solutions. We introduce integrated design, modeling, and verification of the clutch in detail. Preliminary experimental results show the change in impedance force of the clutch is close to 24-fold at the maximum force density of 15.64 N/cm(2). We validated the clutch experimentally in (1) enhancing the bending stiffness of a soft actuator to increase a soft manipulator's gripping force by 73%; (2) enabling a soft cylindrical actuator to execute omnidirectional movement; (3) providing real-time position feedback for hand posture detection and impedance force for kinesthetic haptic feedback. This manuscript presents the functional components with a focus on the integrated design methodology, which will have an impact on the development of soft robots and wearable devices.

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC2021