Design and experimental testing of the OctArm soft robot manipulator

Grissom, Michael D.; Chitrakaran, V.K.; Dienno, Dustin; Csencits, Matthew; Pritts, M.; Jones, Bryan A.; McMahan, William; Dawson, D.M.; Rahn, Chris; Walker, Ian D.

doi:10.1117/12.665321

Cited by 104 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…While these traditional snake robots have impressive capabilities and are useful in many applications such as search-and-rescue, they can be complex, fragile, and expensive. Often, these types of robots employ one traditional actuator, such as motor, per degree of freedom.A class of hyper-redundant manipulators that seeks to maximize mechanical compliance is hydrostatic robotics, which often utilize hydraulics and pneumatics for actuation [11][12] [13]. These types of robots are typically designed to mimic biological systems, as many applications can greatly benefit from robots that have the strength and dexterity of natural structures such as tongues, tentacles, and trunks [14].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Analysis of a Robust, Low-cost, Highly Articulated manipulator enabled by jamming of granular media

Cheng

Lobovsky

Keating

et al. 2012

2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

264

161

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Abstract-Hyper-redundant manipulators can be fragile, expensive, and limited in their flexibility due to the distributed and bulky actuators that are typically used to achieve the precision and degrees of freedom (DOFs) required. Here, a manipulator is proposed that is robust, high-force, low-cost, and highly articulated without employing traditional actuators mounted at the manipulator joints. Rather, local tunable stiffness is coupled with off-board spooler motors and tension cables to achieve complex manipulator configurations. Tunable stiffness is achieved by reversible jamming of granular media, which-by applying a vacuum to enclosed grainscauses the grains to transition between solid-like states and liquid-like ones. Experimental studies were conducted to identify grains with high strength-to-weight performance. A prototype of the manipulator is presented with performance analysis, with emphasis on speed, strength, and articulation. This novel design for a manipulator-and use of jamming for robotic applications in general-could greatly benefit applications such as human-safe robotics and systems in which robots need to exhibit high flexibility to conform to their environments. [6], and to create a variable stiffness endoscopic tube [7]. The combination of these projects highlights the primary benefits of utilizing jamming for robotics:it allows robots to be more human-safe, inexpensive, and robust compared to most technologies that have traditionally been used for such applications.The goal of this paper is to further the use and understanding of jamming for engineering applications. Specifically, we present the design and analysis of a robotic manipulator composed of 1) serial modules that can transition between rigid and flexible states via jamming and 2) tension cables running along the length of the manipulator and whose lengths are controlled by spooler motors. We previously demonstrated this robotic architecture of coupling locally tunable stiffness with global actuation as a thrust toward soft robotics [8] [9]. One of the main benefits of this type of system is that by eliminating the need for distributed-and often rigid and bulky-actuators throughout the robot, the system can be more robust and flexible, enabling it to conform to its environment better. In addition, the cost of the robot can be drastically reduced.In this paper we also begin to explore how grain properties affect the performance of jammed systems. Specifically, we seek to maximize the strength-to-weight ratio of jammed systems. This is an important figure of merit for manipulators, where the robot must be able to support its own weight in addition to any payloads.Because granular systems inherently lack mechanical structure in their unjammed states, their flexibility and high DOFs can be beneficial for hyper-redundant robotic systems such as a manipulator. Most approaches in hyper-redundant robotics have involved employing distributed and rigid pneumatic or electromagnetic actuators. Much of the effort in this area has been in dev...

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Analysis of a Robust, Low-cost, Highly Articulated manipulator enabled by jamming of granular media

Cheng

Lobovsky

Keating

et al. 2012

2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

264

161

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Consequently, the relationship between θ and the overall length change of the left and right wire, l l Δ and r l Δ , without any external force, can be obtained as (4). Here we can notice that the sum of the length change is nonzero.…”

Section: A 1 Dof Variable Neutral-line Manipulatormentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Most snake-like manipulators can be roughly categorized into flexible manipulators and hyper-redundant manipulators. Trunk and tentacle-like devices made from soft materials belong to the flexible manipulator category [1,2,3,4] and they have inherent passive compliance, which is one of the great advantages of these manipulators. On the other hand, hyper-redundant manipulators [5,6,7] are composed of many rigid links and joints, which can be actuated by embedded motors as in [7], or, by external actuators and transmission components such as tendons or flexible shafts [5,6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Stiffness-Adjustable Hyperredundant Manipulator Using a Variable Neutral-Line Mechanism for Minimally Invasive Surgery

Cheng²,

et al. 2014

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Abstract-In robotic single port surgery, it is desirable for a manipulator to exhibit the property of variable stiffness. Small port incisions may require both high flexibility of the manipulator for safety purposes, and high structural stiffness for operational precision and high payload capability. This paper presents a new hyper-redundant tubular manipulator with a variable neutral-line mechanisms and adjustable stiffness.A unique asymmetric arrangement of the tendons and the links realizes both articulation of the manipulator and continuous stiffness modulation. This asymmetric motion of the manipulator is compensated by a novel actuation mechanism without affecting its structural stiffness.The paper describes the basic mechanics of the variable neutral-line manipulator, and its stiffness characteristics. Simulation and experimental results verify the performance of the proposed mechanism.Index Terms -Variable neutral-line mechanism, snake-like manipulator, adjustable stiffness, medical robot.

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“…The first example of continuum arm was the tensor arm (Anderson and Horn, 1967) that was composed of a series of plates interconnected by universal joints driven by tendons. In recent years, bio-inspired solutions have also been proposed: the OctArm (Grissom et al, 2006), an octopus inspired arm composed of three modules of pneumatic muscles actuators (McKibben actuators) and its improvement (Neppalli and Jones, 2007); another octopus arm (Laschi et al, 2009) made purely with soft materials and actuated by tendon (Cianchetti et al, 2011) or by Shape Memory Alloy (Laschi et al, 2012); the elephant trunk manipulator with elastic connection between joints actuated by tendons (Cieslak and Morecki, 1999;Hannan and Walker, 2003); and the Air-Octor (McMahan et al, 2005) by using a rubber tube for the trunk and cable actuation, reducing complexity of fabrication and increasing flexibility. Regarding grippers, soft robotics demonstrated to be prone at solving problems related to the uncertainty of the objects shape.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

SIMBA: Tendon-Driven Modular Continuum Arm with Soft Reconfigurable Gripper

et al. 2017

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In this paper, we describe the conceptual design and implementation of the Soft Compliant Manipulator for Broad Applications (SIMBA) manipulator, which is designed and developed for participating in the RoboSoft Grand Challenge 2016. In our novel design, we have proposed (1) a modular continuum arm with independent actuation units for each module, to increase maintainability; (2) a soft reconfigurable hand, for a better adaptation of the fingers to objects of different shapes and size; (3) a moving base for increasing the workspace. We used a hybrid approach in designing and manufacturing by integrating soft and hard components, in both materials and actuation, providing high lateral stiffness in the arm through flat springs, soft joints in fingers for more compliancy and tendon-motor actuation mechanism providing flexibility but at the same time precision and speed. The SIMBA manipulator has demonstrated excellent grasping and manipulation capabilities by being able to grasp objects with different fragility, geometry, and size; and by lifting objects with up to 2 kg of weight it demonstrate also to be robust and reliable. The experimental results pointed out that our design and approach can lead to the realization of robots able to act in unknown and unstructured environments in synergy with humans, for a variety of applications where compliancy is fundamental, preserving robustness and safety.

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Design and experimental testing of the OctArm soft robot manipulator

Cited by 104 publications

References 17 publications

Design and Analysis of a Robust, Low-cost, Highly Articulated manipulator enabled by jamming of granular media

Design and Analysis of a Robust, Low-cost, Highly Articulated manipulator enabled by jamming of granular media

A Stiffness-Adjustable Hyperredundant Manipulator Using a Variable Neutral-Line Mechanism for Minimally Invasive Surgery

SIMBA: Tendon-Driven Modular Continuum Arm with Soft Reconfigurable Gripper

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