A soft matter computer for soft robots
A soft matter computer for soft robots
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DOI：
10.1126/scirobotics.aaw6060
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发表时间：
2019-08-21
期刊：
影响因子：
25
通讯作者：
Rossiter, J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Garrad, M.;Soter, G.;Rossiter, J.
尽管人们对软机器人越来越感兴趣，但对软物质计算机制的发展却很少关注。将计算直接嵌入软材料不仅是下一代全软机器人的必要条件，也是智能材料超越刺激-反应关系，向生物系统中看到的智能行为发展的必要条件。本文介绍了软物质计算机（SMCs），一种低成本、易于制造的软机器人计算机制。SMC的构建块是导电流体受体（CFR），它通过嵌入软管的电极将流体输入信号映射到电输出信号。smc可以进行模拟和数字计算。SMCs的潜力通过将它们集成到三个软机器人中来证明：(i)一个Softworm机器人由一个SMC控制，该SMC产生三种不同步态所需的控制信号；（ii）通过调整CFR的参数，给予软爪一组可编程的反射；（iii）通过仅改变一个输入参数，在三种不同的行为之间切换两自由度弯曲驱动器。SMCs是一种将计算直接集成到软材料中的低成本方法，也是迈向完全软自主机器人的重要一步。
Despite the growing interest in soft robotics, little attention has been paid to the development of soft matter computational mechanisms. Embedding computation directly into soft materials is not only necessary for the next generation of fully soft robots but also for smart materials to move beyond stimulus-response relationships and toward the intelligent behaviors seen in biological systems. This article describes soft matter computers (SMCs), low-cost, and easily fabricated computational mechanisms for soft robots. The building block of an SMC is a conductive fluid receptor (CFR), which maps a fluidic input signal to an electrical output signal via electrodes embedded into a soft tube. SMCs could perform both analog and digital computation. The potential of SMCs is demonstrated by integrating them into three soft robots: (i) a Softworm robot was controlled by an SMC that generated the control signals necessary for three distinct gaits; (ii) a soft gripper was given a set of reflexes that could be programmed by adjusting the parameters of the CFR; and (iii) a two-degree of freedom bending actuator was switched between three distinct behaviors by varying only one input parameter. SMCs are a low-cost way to integrate computation directly into soft materials and an important step toward entirely soft autonomous robots.