PISRob: A Pneumatic Soft Robot for Locomoting Like an Inchworm

Xie, Rong; Su, Manjia; Zhang, Yihong; Li, Mingjun; Zhu, Haifei; Guan, Yisheng

doi:10.1109/icra.2018.8461189

Cited by 34 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…A soft matrix has an air cavity enveloped by expanding and non-expanding layers to fulfill the requirements for a common bending motion [12,19,20]. However, a common bending motion can be distorted when out-of-plane forces are applied.…”

Section: Structural Design and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Common soft actuators are constructed as monolithic structures from soft materials, such as silicone rubbers [2,3], electroactive polymers [6][7][8], shape memory alloys [9,10], elastomers [11,12], hydrogels [13], or composites [14,15]. Actuation methods include a variety of stimuli, such as electrical charges [6][7][8][9][10], chemical reactions [2,16,17], and pressurized air or fluids [12,18]. Although their size, structure, material, and stimuli generally differ, their actuation motion can be divided into three basic types: bending, extending/contracting, and twisting [19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For some special applications, it is necessary to constrain the deformation in some specific direction, but not necessary to vary stiffness in real time. For example, in-plane bending (e.g., in the author's previous work [12]) is needed to achieve climbing on inclined surfaces or poles. The out-of-plane motion is limited, but it is not necessary to change its stiffness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pneumatic Soft Actuator with Anisotropic Soft and Rigid Restraints for Pure in-Plane Bending Motion

Xie

Zhang

et al. 2019

Applied Sciences

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A variety of soft robots with prospective applications has been developed in recent years. As a key component of a soft robot, the soft actuator plays a critical role and hence must be designed carefully according to application requirements. The soft body may deform in undesired directions if no restraint is endued, due to the isotropy of the pure soft material. For some soft robots such as an inchworm-like biped climbing robot, the actuation direction must be constrained with the appropriate structure design of the soft actuator. This study proposes a pneumatic soft actuator (PSA) to achieve pure in-plane bending motion with anisotropic soft and rigid restraints. The in-plane bending pneumatic soft actuator (2D-PSA) is developed with a composite structure where a metal hinge belt is embedded into the soft material. The design method, material choice, and fabrication process are presented in detail in this paper. Tests are conducted to measure the actuating performance of 2D-PSA in terms of the relationship between the bending angle or force and the input air pressure. Dynamic response is also measured with a laser tracker. Furthermore, a comparative experiment is carried out between the presented 2D-PSA and a general PSA, with results verifying the effectiveness of the presented 2D-PSA. A robot consisting of two serially-connected 2D-PSAs and three pneumatic suckers, which can climb on a flat surface mimicking a snake’s locomotion, is developed as an application demo of the presented 2D-PSA. Its locomotion capability presents the in-plane performance and mobility of 2D-PSA.

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Section: Structural Design and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pneumatic Soft Actuator with Anisotropic Soft and Rigid Restraints for Pure in-Plane Bending Motion

Xie

Zhang

et al. 2019

Applied Sciences

Self Cite

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“…Current climbing robots must minimize their interactions with the environment or risk damaging it or themselves. One example of a soft, caterpillar-inspired robot that attempts to mimic kinematics of a caterpillar is PISRob (Xie et al, 2018). PISRob is a pneumatic robot that uses an inching gait.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The design and development of Branch Bot: a branch-crawling, caterpillar-inspired, soft robot

Rozen-Levy

Messner

Trimmer

2019

The International Journal of Robotics Research

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A soft climbing robot has the potential to access locations such as wiring ducts and tree canopies that are unreachable by humans and traditional rigid robots. In addition, a soft robot is robust and can fall without damaging itself or its environment. We present a soft, branch-crawling robot that is inspired by the passive gripping mechanisms used by caterpillars. The conformability of the robot’s soft body makes it uniquely suited to move in a complex 3D environment. A key innovation is that grip release is actively controlled and coordinated with propulsion generated by stored elastic energy. The robot is molded from silicone rubber and actuated using remote motor-tendons coupled to the structure through Bowden cables. Grip is achieved passively through an elastic flexure that pushes a compliant finger against the dowel. Experimental results show that the gripper is easily able to support the weight of the robot, and that the body structure allows the robot to crawl horizontally, vertically, and along branches. This robot demonstrates some key advantages of a soft robotic platform over traditional rigid robots.

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“…To interact with humans, these rigid robots require advanced sensing and control systems, significantly increasing cost and complexity [3]. Soft robots, in contrast, are made of intrinsically soft and stretchable materials such as gels and elastomers, and are formed into compliant active mechanisms and structures [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. They are, therefore, able to offer safer and more robust interactions with humans and natural environments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electroactive Textile Actuators for Breathability Control and Thermal Regulation Devices

et al. 2019

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Smart fabrics offer the potential for a new generation of soft robotics and wearable technologies through the fusion of smart materials, textiles and electrical circuitries. Conductive and stretchable textiles have inherent compliance and low resistance that are suitable for driving artificial muscle actuators and are potentially safer electrode materials for soft actuation technologies. We demonstrate how soft electroactive actuating structures can be designed and fabricated from conducting textiles. We first quantitatively analyse a range of stretchable conductive textiles for dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). We found that conductive-knit textiles are more suitable for unidirectional DEA applications due to the largest difference (150%) in principle strain axes, whereas isotropic textiles are more suited to bidirectional DEA applications due to the smallest (11.1%) principle strain difference. Finally, we demonstrate controllable breathability through a planar e-textile DEA-driven skin and show thermal regulation in a wearable prototype that exploits soft actuation and kirigami.

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PISRob: A Pneumatic Soft Robot for Locomoting Like an Inchworm

Cited by 34 publications

References 11 publications

Pneumatic Soft Actuator with Anisotropic Soft and Rigid Restraints for Pure in-Plane Bending Motion

Pneumatic Soft Actuator with Anisotropic Soft and Rigid Restraints for Pure in-Plane Bending Motion

The design and development of Branch Bot: a branch-crawling, caterpillar-inspired, soft robot

Electroactive Textile Actuators for Breathability Control and Thermal Regulation Devices

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