Untethered Soft Robots for Future Planetary Explorations?

Ng, Chelsea Shan Xian; Lum, Guo Zhan

doi:10.1002/aisy.202100106

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In this section, a variety of analogues and their impacts for people in space and on Earth are described. The focus is on analogue missions that involve humans including human-robot combinations, rather than non-human only missions (Ng & Lum, 2022), as the value of human space flight is well-established meaning that humans will continue travelling into space (Shelhamer, 2017).…”

Section: Accepted Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing disaster and health risks for sustainable outer space

Harris

Duda

Kelman

et al. 2022

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Any future outer space exploration and exploitation should more fully consider disaster and health risks as part of aiming for sustainability. The advent of the socalled "New Space" race, age, or era characterised by democratisation, commercialization, militarisation, and overlapping outer space activities such as tourism presents challenges for disaster-related and health-related risks in and for outer space. Such challenges have been extensively researched for Earth, but less so for space. This article presents an overview of key aspects for addressing disaster and health risks in outer space within a wider sustainability framing. After an introduction providing background and scope, this article's next section considers some key health and disaster risks within sustainable outer space and offers insights from Earth. The following two sections apply this knowledge by focusing on how analogue missions and international legal and voluntary regimes can each be used to reduce risks and potentially make outer space healthier and safer. The findings advocate that there is a wealth of knowledge and experience about mitigating risks to health and disaster risk reduction on Earth that can inform space flight and exploration. The examples explored include the physical, legal, and regulatory aspects of the "new space" industry, which highlights the relevance of equating examples on Earth. The article concludes that expectations must be managed regarding scenarios for which response, rescue, and recovery are precluded, prompting a necessary focus on prevention and

show abstract

Section: Accepted Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing disaster and health risks for sustainable outer space

Harris

Duda

Kelman

et al. 2022

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Features and behaviors soft robot structures have such as flexibility, compliance, fault-tolerance, and motion biomimicry benefiting human-robot interaction guarantee its outstanding penitential for many applications in various daily-life and factory scenarios that in need of low-power, smooth, and non-rigid operations, and interaction with complex environments. For example, deep-sea exploration, searching and rescuing, space missions, wearable devices, and minimally invasive surgery [4][5][6].…”

Section: Related Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Machine Learning Amplified Control System for HASEL Actuator Soft Robot System

Dong

2022

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The HASEL actuator is a cutting-edge soft robot compound that is well suited for tasks in unstructured, dynamic environments and has the penitential for superiorly comfortable and smooth human-robot Interaction. However, the nonlinear relation between the input voltage, output strain of the actuators, and the difficulty of analytical modelling makes it hard to design its control software due to the various source of kinematic noises. Machine learning technics, however, which are invented to study the implicit relations in multiparameter problems that do not require pre-existing knowledge, are well suited for HASEL actuators. Traditionally, researchers consider the behavior of this time-dependent system as a sequence of consecutive statuses and use machine learning to enhance conventional algorithms that consume previous and current status and target and adjust the system using varying control input. However, HASEL actuators’ unique propriety of self-stable and negligible lag in response to input changing makes it possible to consider the spatial path of the structure as a whole and control it based on pattern matching. Introducing Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) and multilayer perceptron (MLP), this paper presents a pattern-matching-based predictive control algorithm for the HASEL actuator system with acceptable size and high accuracy.

show abstract

“…Unlike remotely operated vehicles that propel with substantial turbulence, soft underwater robots can enable close-up observation of aquatic life in a safe and silent way [ 1 , 2 ]. Especially, hydrogel-based actuators show advantages for this application [ 3 , 4 ] as they are compliant, wet, and biocompatible [ 5 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Hydrogel-Based Self-Sensing Underwater Actuator

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Soft robots made of hydrogels are suited for underwater exploration due to their biocompatibility and compliancy. Yet, reaching high dexterity and actuation force for hydrogel-based actuators is challenging. Meanwhile, real-time proprioception is critical for feedback control. Moreover, sensor integration to mimic living organisms remains problematic. To address these challenges, we introduce a hydrogel actuator driven by hydraulic force with a fast response (time constant 0.83 s). The highly stretchable and conductive hydrogel (1400% strain) is molded into the PneuNet shape, and two of them are further assembled symmetrically to actuate bi-directionally. Then, we demonstrate its bionic application for underwater swimming, showing 2 cm/s (0.19 BL/s) speed. Inspired by biological neuromuscular systems’ sensory motion, which unifies the sensing and actuation in a single unit, we explore the hydrogel actuator’s self-sensing capacity utilizing strain-induced resistance change. The results show that the soft actuator’s proprioception can monitor the undulation in real-time with a sensitivity of 0.2%/degree. Furthermore, we take a finite-element method and first-order differential equations to model the actuator’s bending in response to pressure. We show that such a model can precisely predict the robot’s bending response over a range of pressures. With the self-sensing actuator and the proposed model, we expect the new approach can lead to future soft robots for underwater exploration with feedback control, and the underlying mechanism of the undulation control might offer significant insights for biomimetic research.

show abstract

Untethered Soft Robots for Future Planetary Explorations?

Cited by 14 publications

References 30 publications

Addressing disaster and health risks for sustainable outer space

Addressing disaster and health risks for sustainable outer space

Machine Learning Amplified Control System for HASEL Actuator Soft Robot System

A Hydrogel-Based Self-Sensing Underwater Actuator

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About