An untethered soft cellular robot with variable volume, friction, and unit-to-unit cohesion

Devlin, Matthew R.; Young, Brad T.; Naclerio, Nicholas D.; Haggerty, David A.; Hawkes, Elliot W.

doi:10.1109/iros45743.2020.9341351

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The inflatable robot units (Fig. 2A) are based on our coauthors' recent prior work [22] demonstrating untethered cellular robots. Each is composed of a 45cm maximum diameter, 0.4mm thick latex membrane enclosing a DC air pump, solenoid-controlled valve, and up to N (N = 8 given the analog switch array used in this work) acoustic modules distributed across the membrane.…”

Section: A System Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The poor impedance matching between the piezoelectric transducer and the amplifier, which is designed for standard electret condenser microphones, creates a high pass filter around 2kHz. Although here we show units with electronics and power located externally to the robot membrane, prior work shows that the required electronics, battery pack, and charging circuit can be incorporated into the latex membranes inside a 3D printed enclosure [22].…”

Section: A System Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

“…With 1-DOF actuation, coordination between connected robots allows for locomotion based on an inchworm gait [22]. Contact-based communication allows the robots to selectively initiate inflation cycles in neighboring robots.…”

Section: Autonomous Behavior Demonstrationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Acoustic Communication and Sensing for Inflatable Modular Soft Robots

Drew¹,

Devlin²,

Hawkes³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Modular soft robots combine the strengths of two traditionally separate areas of robotics. As modular robots, they can show robustness to individual failure and reconfigurability; as soft robots, they can deform and undergo large shape changes in order to adapt to their environment, and have inherent human safety. However, for sensing and communication these robots also combine the challenges of both: they require solutions that are scalable (low cost and complexity) and efficient (low power) to enable collectives of large numbers of robots, and these solutions must also be able to interface with the high extension ratio elastic bodies of soft robots. In this work, we seek to address these challenges using acoustic signals produced by piezoelectric surface transducers that are cheap, simple, and low power, and that not only integrate with but also leverage the elastic robot skins for signal transmission. Importantly, to further increase scalability, the transducers exhibit multi-functionality made possible by a relatively flat frequency response across the audible and ultrasonic ranges. With minimal hardware, they enable directional contact-based communication, audible-range communication at a distance, and exteroceptive sensing. We demonstrate a subset of the decentralized collective behaviors these functions make possible with multi-robot hardware implementations. The use of acoustic waves in this domain is shown to provide distinct advantages over existing solutions.

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Section: A System Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A System Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Acoustic Communication and Sensing for Inflatable Modular Soft Robots

Drew¹,

Devlin²,

Hawkes³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…This approach has strong presence in nature, such as auxesis in plant growth and morphogenesis in tissue formation [5], [6] which roboticists have drawn bioinspiration from [7]. However, current physical manifestations of this approach have had critical limitations such as complex / slow actuation or tethers to an external power source [8], [9], [10]. We wish to develop modular systems that can leverage volume-changing approaches for untethered motion, capable of strong yet compliant actions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, expansion-based robots has experienced a resurgence through soft robotics actuator development. [7], [9], [10] all rely on inflation to expand, only differing in their geometries and composition. [7] is most similar to [19] by creating silicone cubes with a magnet on each face for reconfiguring.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Flipper-Style Locomotion Through Strong Expanding Modular Robots

Chin

Burns

Xie

et al. 2023

IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett.

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Volume-changing robotic units present an exciting pathway for modular robotics. However, current attempts have been relatively limited, requiring tethers, complex fabrication or slow cycle times. In this letter, we present AuxBots: an auxeticbased approach to create high force, fast cycle time self-contained modules. By driving the auxetic shell's expansion with a motor and leadscrew, these robots are capable of expanding their volume by 274% in 0.8 seconds with a maximum strength to weight ratio of 76x. These force and expansion properties enable us to use these modules in conjunction with flexible wire constraints to get shape changing behavior and independent locomotion. We demonstrate the power of this modular system by using a limited number of AuxBots to mimic the flipper-style locomotion of mudskippers and sea turtles. These structures are entirely untethered and can still move forward even as some AuxBots stall and enter a fault state, achieving the key modular robotics goals of versatility and robustness. Index Terms-Actuation and joint mechanisms, biologicallyinspired robots, cellular and modular robots. I. INTRODUCTIONM ODULAR robotics offers a promising avenue for creating a wide range of robot topologies that are robust to individual robot failure. Modular robotic systems leverage the local behavior from many identical unit robots to achieve global shape changes [1]. One critical limitation for current modular robotic systems is that their movements are dependent on how many units are part of the network. Most modular robotic systems fall under the lattice, chain or swarm architectures. If the individual robots do not change dramatically in shape, these architectures constrain large scale transformation to only occur through reconfiguration, i.e. the physical movement of n robots to another location [2].Volume-changing systems have the potential to reduce the number of robots and traveling motions needed for large scale transformation. Rather than needing modules to move past one Manuscript

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