Soft Robot Skin With Conformal Adaptability for On-Body Tactile Perception of Collaborative Robots
Soft Robot Skin With Conformal Adaptability for On-Body Tactile Perception of Collaborative Robots
复制标题
具有共形适应性的软机器人皮肤，用于协作机器人的身体触觉感知
DOI：
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发表时间：
2022
影响因子：
5.2
通讯作者：
Geng Yang
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Zhiqiu Ye;Gaoyang Pang;Kaichen Xu;Zeyang Hou;Honghao Lv;Yiren Shen;Geng Yang
机器人皮肤作为协作机器人（cobots）与外部环境之间的物理接口，能够传递体表触觉信号，以便协作机器人在任务过程中一旦发生碰撞就能及时做出反应，从而避免对协作机器人自身和周围环境造成损害。为了实现有效的体表触觉感知，机器人皮肤应具有足够的共形适应性，能够覆盖在协作机器人的各种复杂轮廓上，比如关节处，同时保持准确和快速的感知性能。在本文中，研发了一种由力传感单元阵列和具有蛇形结构的基底组成的软质机器人皮肤，两者均由多孔材料制成。蛇形结构赋予所研发的皮肤可拉伸的特性。因此，这种皮肤能够以较小的局部应力共形地附着在协作机器人的复杂表面上，这通过有限元分析得到了验证。利用多孔微结构的优势，嵌入基底的传感单元在外力作用下表现出高灵敏度和快速响应时间，这是实时碰撞检测的关键因素。最后，进行了实验验证，以核实将所研发的软质机器人皮肤部署在机器人手臂上为协作机器人提供体表触觉感知的可行性。
Robot skin, as the physical interface between collaborative robots (cobots) and the external environments, could mediate on-body tactile signals for cobots to respond timely once a collision occurs during tasks and thus avoid damages to both cobots and surroundings. To achieve effective on-body tactile perception, robot skin should possess adequate conformal adaptability to be covered on various complex contours on the cobot, such as joints, while maintaining accurate and rapid sensing performance. In this letter, a soft robot skin consisting of an array of force-sensing units and a substrate with a serpentine structure was developed, both of which were made of porous material. The serpentine structure endows the developed skin with stretchable attributes. Thus, the skin could be conformally attached to complex surfaces of a cobot with less local stress, which was validated by finite element analysis. Taking the advantage of porous microstructure, the sensing units embedded in the substrate have exhibited high sensitivity and fast response time under external force, which are essential factors in real-time collision detection. Finally, experimental validation was carried out to verify the feasibility of deploying the developed soft robot skin on a robot arm to provide on-body tactile perception for a cobot.