Cable-Driven Jamming of a Boundary Constrained Soft Robot
Cable-Driven Jamming of a Boundary Constrained Soft Robot
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DOI：
10.1109/robosoft48309.2020.9116042
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发表时间：
2020-05
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Koki Tanaka;Mohammad Amin Karimi;Bruno-Pier Busque;Declan Mulroy;Qiyuan Zhou;R. Batra;A. Srivastava;H. Jaeger;M. Spenko
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文献类型：
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作者：
Koki Tanaka;Mohammad Amin Karimi;Bruno-Pier Busque;Declan Mulroy;Qiyuan Zhou;R. Batra;A. Srivastava;H. Jaeger;M. Spenko
软机器人采用灵活且顺应的材料来执行自适应任务并在不确定的环境中导航。然而，软体机器人通常无法达到与刚体机器人相当的力和精度。在本文中，我们提出了一种新型移动软机器人，它可以在柔顺状态和刚性状态之间可逆转换，而无需重新配置。机器人可以被动地适应或主动地控制其形状，在其当前配置中变硬以充当刚体机器人，然后返回到其灵活的形式。机器人结构由被主动膜包围的被动颗粒材料组成。该膜由互连的机器人子单元组成，可以控制颗粒材料的堆积密度，并通过改变互连电缆的长度来利用干扰行为。每个机器人子单元都使用差动驱动系统来实现运动和自我重构。我们展示了机器人设计并进行了一系列运动和物体操纵实验，以表征机器人在软状态和刚性状态下的性能。我们还介绍了一个仿真框架，在该框架中我们对干扰软机器人设计进行建模，并研究此类机器人的可扩展性。所提出的概念展示了软机器人和刚性机器人的特性，并有可能弥合两者之间的差距。
Soft robots employ flexible and compliant materials to perform adaptive tasks and navigate uncertain environments. However, soft robots are often unable to achieve forces and precision on the order of rigid-bodied robots. In this paper, we propose a new class of mobile soft robots that can reversibly transition between compliant and stiff states without reconfiguration. The robot can passively conform or actively control its shape, stiffen in its current configuration to function as a rigid-bodied robot, then return to its flexible form. The robotic structure consists of passive granular material surrounded by an active membrane. The membrane is composed of interconnected robotic sub-units that can control the packing density of the granular material and exploit jamming behaviors by varying the length of the interconnecting cables. Each robotic sub-unit uses a differential drive system to achieve locomotion and self-reconfigurability. We present the robot design and perform a set of locomotion and object manipulation experiments to characterize the robot’s performance in soft and rigid states. We also introduce a simulation framework in which we model the jamming soft robot design and study the scalability of this class of robots. The proposed concept demonstrates the properties of both soft and rigid robots, and has the potential to bridge the gap between the two.