Strategies to Control Performance of 3D-Printed, Cable-Driven Soft Polymer Actuators: From Simple Architectures to Gripper Prototype

Slesarenko, Viacheslav; Engelkemier, Seiji; Galich, Pavel I.; Vladimirsky, Dmitry; Klein, Gregory; Rudykh, Stephan

doi:10.3390/polym10080846

Cited by 29 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…In addition, although the average contractile forces were from 42.7 to 79.6 µN, which seems small, with proper strategies (consider the use of light material and driving algorithm) of body material selection, structure design, and control [2,39,40], the bio-actuator can be used to handle small delicate objects.…”

Section: Measurement Of DV Contractile Forcementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bio-actuators are different from soft biomimetic actuators [1]; bio-actuators are a kind of actuator with an integrated biological organism and a micro structure made using polydimethylpolysiloxane (PDMS), polymer [2], and polylactic acid [3]. The principle of bio-actuators exploits their advantages of being self-actuated, wireless, and mechanochemical transducers that require no externally coupled energy source or stimuli, and a number of research studies on micro devices and cellular mechanical devices that use bio-actuators have been completed (see, for example, [4][5][6]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Insect Muscular Tissue-Powered Swimming Robot

et al. 2019

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Bio-actuators that use insect muscular tissue have attracted attention from researchers worldwide because of their small size, self-motive property, self-repairer ability, robustness, and the need for less environment management than mammalian cells. To demonstrate the potential of insect muscular tissue for use as bio-actuators, three types of these robots, a pillar actuator, a walker, and a twizzer, have been designed and fabricated. However, a model of an insect muscular tissue-powered swimming robot that is able to float and swim in a solution has not yet been reported. Therefore, in this paper, we present a prototype of an insect muscular tissue-powered autonomous micro swimming robot that operates at room temperature and requires no temperature and pH maintenance. To design a practical robot body that is capable of swimming by using the force of the insect dorsal vessel (DV), we first measured the contraction force of the DV. Then, the body of the swimming robot was designed, and the design was confirmed by a simulation that used the condition of measured contraction force. After that, we fabricated the robot body using polydimethylpolysiloxane (PDMS). The PDMS body was obtained from a mold that was fabricated by a stereo lithography method. Finally, we carefully attached the DV to the PDMS body to complete the assembly of the swimming robot. As a result, we confirmed the micro swimming robot swam autonomously at an average velocity of 11.7 µm/s using spontaneous contractions of the complete insect DV tissue. These results demonstrated that the insect DV has potential for use as a bio-actuator for floating and swimming in solution.2 of 15 considerable attention, and bio-hybrid microdevices (the body structure can be made from polymer) were reported, including a pillar actuator and micro heart pumps [7][8][9][10][11], and different kinds of robots, including walking and swimming robots [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19].However, these mammalian muscle cells and tissue-integrated devices require precise environmental control to keep the contractile ability of the muscle cells. The culture medium must be replaced often, and the pH and temperature of the medium must be strictly controlled around 7.4 • C and 37 • C, respectively [20,21]. On the other hand, the tissues of insects are generally robust over a much wider range of living conditions compared with those of mammals. Baryshyan et al. [21] and Akiyama et al. [22] selected the insect tissue and the dorsal vessel (DV) as a bio-actuator. The DV is a central pulsating blood vessel located along the back of an insect, and it acts as a heart. This means that the DV autonomously contracts at a constant frequency without any kind of control or stimuli. The DV tissue was used to demonstrate a micro-pillar actuator [22,23], a walking robot [24], and an atmospheric-operable bio-actuator [20], which worked at room temperature for 90 days without medium replacement [23]. In these studies, this kind of actuator was also capable of working at temperatures from 5 to 40 •...

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Section: Measurement Of DV Contractile Forcementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insect Muscular Tissue-Powered Swimming Robot

et al. 2019

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“…However, the realization of such flexible joints with desired mechanical properties was not possible using simple FDM 3D printers. As an alternative solution to avoid unwanted compliance in unactuated directions, Slesarenko et al (2018) employed multimaterial 3D printing to manufacture simple soft actuators, driven by an embedded cable. In order to understand how composite geometry of the actuator defines the deformed shape, the authors explored different geometrical and material inhomogeneities in the form of inserts, notches, and stiff tubular elements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and prototyping soft–rigid tendon-driven modular grippers using interpenetrating phase composites materials

Hussain

Al‐Ketan

Renda

et al. 2020

The International Journal of Robotics Research

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Advances in soft robotics and material science have enabled rapid progress in soft grippers. The ability to 3D print materials with softer, more elastic materials properties is a recent development and a key enabling technology for the rapid development of soft robots. However, obtaining the desired mechanical properties (e.g., stiffness) of the soft joints and information about the parameters to select in 3D printers is often not straightforward. In this article, we propose the use of interpenetrating phase composites (IPCs) materials with mathematically generated topologies based on triply periodic minimal surfaces for the development of soft grippers with desired mechanical properties. The flexible joints of the gripper can be realized through two or more phases that are topologically interconnected such that each phase represents a standalone cellular structure. As a case study, we present the design and development of a two-finger soft gripper as an example to demonstrate the application scenario of our approach. The flexible parts with desired stiffness values are realized by using IPCs materials in which the reinforcement distribution can be regulated on the basis of mathematical models. We characterized the properties of the material through a set of quantitative experiments on IPCs material specimens, and then we realized qualitative grasping tests with the gripper and a set of objects with different shapes and sizes. We showed that by properly regulating the properties of IPCs material it is possible to design modular grippers with the same structure, but different closure motions. Grippers can be customized for different tasks by easily assembling and disassembling fingers.

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“…Indeed, soft actuators change their shapes in response to external stimuli [6,7]. Actuators can be triggered by various stimulus such as heat, light, magnetic field, pneumatic pressure, electric filed, pH, and so on [8,9]. Shape-memory alloys, fluidic elastomer actuators, shape memory polymers, dielectric actuators (DEAs), ionic polymer-metal composite, and electro-magnetorheological elastomer actuators are common types of smart materials which could be used in soft actuators [10][11][12][13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Trigger Thermo-Electro-Mechanical Soft Actuators under Large Deformations

et al. 2020

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Dielectric actuators (DEAs), because of their exceptional properties, are well-suited for soft actuators (or robotics) applications. This article studies a multi-stimuli thermo-dielectric-based soft actuator under large bending conditions. In order to determine the stress components and induced moment (or stretches), a nominal Helmholtz free energy density function with two types of hyperelastic models are employed. Non-linear electro-elasticity theory is adopted to derive the governing equations of the actuator. Total deformation gradient tensor is multiplicatively decomposed into electro-mechanical and thermal parts. The problem is solved using the second-order Runge-Kutta method. Then, the numerical results under thermo-mechanical loadings are validated against the finite element method (FEM) outcomes by developing a user-defined subroutine, UHYPER in a commercial FEM software. The effect of electric field and thermal stimulus are investigated on the mean radius of curvature and stresses distribution of the actuator. Results reveal that in the presence of electric field, the required moment to actuate the actuator is smaller. Finally, due to simplicity and accuracy of the present boundary problem, the proposed thermally-electrically actuator is expected to be used in future studies and 4D printing of artificial thermo-dielectric-based beam muscles.

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Strategies to Control Performance of 3D-Printed, Cable-Driven Soft Polymer Actuators: From Simple Architectures to Gripper Prototype

Cited by 29 publications

References 43 publications

Insect Muscular Tissue-Powered Swimming Robot

Insect Muscular Tissue-Powered Swimming Robot

Design and prototyping soft–rigid tendon-driven modular grippers using interpenetrating phase composites materials

Multi-Trigger Thermo-Electro-Mechanical Soft Actuators under Large Deformations

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