A Crawling Soft Robot Driven by Pneumatic Foldable Actuators Based on Miura-Ori

Abstract

Origami structures are highly demanded for engineering applications. Using origami folding to design and actuate mechanisms and machines offers attractive opportunities. In this paper, we design a crawling robot driven by pneumatic foldable actuators (PFAs) based on Miura-ori, according to the parallel foldable structure and different control patterns, which can perform different movements. The PFA inspired from Miura-ori is composed of a folding part, transition part, and sealing part, made by flexible materials and a paper skeleton. This actuator can obtain a large deformation by folding under negative pressure due to its own characteristics, and the relationship between deformation and pressure is analyzed. According to the different folding and unfolding times of left and right actuators, the crawling robot can perform both linear and turning movements. The speed of the robot is about 5 mm/s and it can turn at a speed of about 15°/s. The crawling robot uses the ability of the foldable structure to cope with the challenges of different environments and tasks.

Recent Advances in Design and Actuation of Continuum Robots for Medical Applications

“…Fluid driven is the most common and mature type of actuation for CRs. The traditional fluid driven is to achieve deformation and movement by piping in the fluid such as gas and liquid by making the inner cavity of the CRs contract or expand [97]. Therefore, an external gas/liquid pump and some fluid pipe are necessary for a fluid driven CRs.…”

“…Pneumatic [97][98][99][100][101] The principle of pneumatic is to cause the movement of the robot body with the help of the contraction and expansion of air cavity caused by inflation and deflation .…”

Origami Pump Actuator Based Pneumatic Quadruped Robot (OPARO)

“…To generate specific motions, there are multiple options of actuating mechanisms. For instance, the developers can select pneumatic [3], [4], [7], [9], [23], [31], hydraulic [24], electromagnetic [35], combustive [36], tendon-driven [7], [37], [38], and motor-driven [39]. Also, we can fabricate soft robots by using a variety of materials: paper [4], [34], silicone [2], [3], [7], [31], [36], and foam [37], [38].…”

“…For instance, the developers can select pneumatic [3], [4], [7], [9], [23], [31], hydraulic [24], electromagnetic [35], combustive [36], tendon-driven [7], [37], [38], and motor-driven [39]. Also, we can fabricate soft robots by using a variety of materials: paper [4], [34], silicone [2], [3], [7], [31], [36], and foam [37], [38]. Additionally, smart materials such as dielectric elastomers [8], [32], [33], [40], shape memory alloys [17], [34], [41], magnetoactive elastomers [35], and piezoelectrics [42] have been utilized to implement the actuations as well as their structures.…”

Investigation of Compressive Behavior of Pre-folded Thin-walled Column Fabricated by 3D Printing

“…In biomechanics application, the pre-folded thin-walled column could be used for biomedical stents (Kuribayashi et al, 2006) and suspension for prosthetic devices (Sadeghi & Li, 2019). Furthermore, the column is also suitable for suspension components in robotic structures, which usually have complex structures and irregular shapes (Castiblanco et al, 2021;Yu et al, 2020). All these applications utilize the elastic mechanical properties and behavior of the column and do not allow any plastic deformation to avoid failure.…”