Additive Manufacturing for Self-Healing Soft Robots

Roels, Ellen; Terryn, Seppe; Brancart, Joost; Verhelle, Robrecht René; Assche, Guy Van; Vanderborght, Bram

doi:10.1089/soro.2019.0081

Cited by 68 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 39 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The key resolution to these challenges could lie in the mechanisms of actuation; therefore, utilizing smart materials as the actuation mechanisms has been a focus of research. For example, a prosthetic arm equipped with a thermal pneumatic artificial muscle was successfully demonstrated [20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Other pneumatics-powered health care and aid devices have been developed as well [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomimetic Prosthetic Hand Enabled by Liquid Crystal Elastomer Tendons

Zou

et al. 2021

Micromachines

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As one of the most important prosthetic implants for amputees, current commercially available prosthetic hands are still too bulky, heavy, expensive, complex and inefficient. Here, we present a study that utilizes the artificial tendon to drive the motion of fingers in a biomimetic prosthetic hand. The artificial tendon is realized by combining liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) and liquid metal (LM) heating element. A joule heating-induced temperature increase in the LCE tendon leads to linear contraction, which drives the fingers of the biomimetic prosthetic hand to bend in a way similar to the human hand. The responses of the LCE tendon to joule heating, including temperature increase, contraction strain and contraction stress, are characterized. The strategies of achieving a constant contraction stress in an LCE tendon and accelerating the cooling for faster actuation are also explored. This biomimetic prosthetic hand is demonstrated to be able to perform complex tasks including making different hand gestures, holding objects of different sizes and shapes, and carrying weights. The results can find applications in not only prosthetics, but also robots and soft machines.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomimetic Prosthetic Hand Enabled by Liquid Crystal Elastomer Tendons

Zou

et al. 2021

Micromachines

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Their intrinsic compliance makes them interesting for a wide array of applications, from soft robotics [ 1 ] to organs on a chip. [ 2 ] The field has seen rapid growth, in view of the versatility of soft machines, [ 3 ] their ability to replicate animal‐like motion, [ 4–7 ] their intrinsic safety for human interactions, [ 1 ] resilience, [ 8–10 ] and the ability to use material compliance and elasticity as a means to both simplify control and add function. [ 11 ]…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inkjet Printing of Complex Soft Machines with Densely Integrated Electrostatic Actuators

Schlatter

Grasso

Rosset

et al. 2020

Advanced Intelligent Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Soft machines consist of distributed and interconnected actuators, sensors, logic elements, and ideally a power supply, integrated in a stretchable body. Their intrinsic compliance makes them interesting for a wide array of applications, from soft robotics [1] to organs on a chip. [2] The field has seen rapid growth, in view of the versatility of soft machines, [3] their ability to replicate animal-like motion, [4-7] their intrinsic safety for human interactions, [1] resilience, [8-10] and the ability to use material compliance and elasticity as a means to both simplify control and add function. [11] Given the highly integrated nature of complex soft machines, and the need for many different materials for functional and structural elements, additive manufacturing is an appealing method both to create soft machines with multiple independent actuators and to rapidly tailor dimensions, material properties, and device functions to different tasks. [12,13] As a fully printed soft machine requires no assembly, circuits and systems too complex for manual fabrication and assembly become possible. Printing has allowed complex soft structures with advanced materials, [14] but the focus to date has been mostly on pneumatic structures (i.e., printed chambers) and strain sensors for soft robot end effectors. [12,15] With a few exceptions such as the Octobot, [16] liquid-crystal artificial cilia, [17] or ionic electroactive polymers, [18-20] nearly all printed actuators are pneumatically driven fluidic elastomer actuator (FEAs) devices requiring external air pressure connections to inflate or deflate the bladders. [1,21] Fluidic actuation requires elastomers with well-defined channels but needs no electrical elements. In contrast, including electrically operated actuators embeds the electromechanical conversion into the device and reduces the number of external components. However, it adds important requirements, such as printing magnetic materials or metal coils for electromagnetic actuation, resistive tracks for Joule heating, or dielectrics with a high electrical breakdown, absence of pin holes, and the need for high thickness uniformity if electrostatic actuation is used. Actuators with embedded electrical actuation have been realized using printing processes, either partially printed in combination with additional fabrication methods or fully printed. The first category includes ionic electroactive polymers actuators, with printed polymer layers, but metallic electrodes deposited by other methods. [18,20] The second category includes hybrid pneumatic and shape memory polymer actuators with integrated Joule heating [22] or fully printed ionic microactuators. [19] In this work, we use inkjet printing to produce complex soft machines with integrated electrostatic zipping actuators in a single process. We use a three-material printing process which

show abstract

“…With the rapid development of the field of soft robots, many soft grippers driven by different driving modes have been proposed, such as shape memory alloy actuators (SMAs) 4 – 8 , electroactive polymer actuators (EAPs) 9 – 13 , pneumatic grippers 14 – 16 or prosthetic jammers 17 – 19 , self-healing polymers 20 etc. They all rely on passive compliance for gripping, these actuators either are fixed under the substrate, so under the being grasped same object, the success rate and safety of grasping vary with the shape and size of the object being grasped.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A variable structure pneumatic soft robot

Huang

Xiao

2020

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, a variable structure pneumatic soft robot is proposed. Its structure is variable in that when it grasps irregular objects, it can adapt to different sizes by active expansion or contraction. Its expansion range is from diameter 200 to 300 mm, its four soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) can be rotated independently to adapt to different shapes, and it has high flexibility. The active compliant grasping method enables it to capture at the best position, which can improve the success rate of capture and reduce damage to the object being grasped. The experiment proves the effectiveness of the variable structure mechanism, and the proposed soft robot has low cost and a simple manufacturing process, so the mechanism has great application prospects.

show abstract

Additive Manufacturing for Self-Healing Soft Robots

Cited by 68 publications

References 39 publications

Biomimetic Prosthetic Hand Enabled by Liquid Crystal Elastomer Tendons

Biomimetic Prosthetic Hand Enabled by Liquid Crystal Elastomer Tendons

Inkjet Printing of Complex Soft Machines with Densely Integrated Electrostatic Actuators

A variable structure pneumatic soft robot

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About