I-Corps Teams: Dynamically Tunable Reversible Dry Adhesives for Soft Grasping

这个基于机器人抓取系统的I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是多方面的，具有社会、经济和教育潜力。从社会和经济的角度来看，它有助于满足国家在多个应用领域增加自动化的需求，包括先进制造业，水果采摘等农业，以及美国老龄化人口的康复和老年人护理。本文提出的商业化软抓取方法是基于最近获得专利的动态可调可逆干粘附技术，该技术可以帮助解决电子组装和先进制造工艺中的痛点，例如汽车装配线上的不规则形状零件操作。商业化潜力估计在10亿美元左右。从教育角度来看，该项目不仅有助于培养项目高级人才的创业精神，还有助于向学生和研究人员灌输创业原则和实践。I-Corps项目旨在确定行业在机器人抓取系统方面面临的技术挑战，这可能有助于制定与软抓取相关的后续应用驱动的基本问题。各种形状和刚度物体的软抓取一直是机器人领域的一个长期挑战。这里提出的方法是一个正在进行的NSF项目的衍生产品，该项目将新型智能材料和粘附力学集成在一起，以实现具有动态可调可逆干粘附的“核-壳”复合结构。通过调节由智能材料制成的“核心”的刚度，改变了复合材料与粘附物体之间界面的力分布方式，从而改变了粘附界面的有效粘附强度。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project, based on robotic gripping systems, is multifaceted and has societal, economic, and educational potential. From a societal and economic standpoint, it contributes to addressing the national need for increased automation in multiple application domains, including advanced manufacturing, agriculture such as fruit picking, as well as rehabilitation and elderly care of an aging population in the US. The soft grasping approach proposed to be commercialized here is based on a recently patented dynamically tunable reversible dry adhesion technology, which can help resolve pain points in electronics assembly and advanced manufacturing processes such as irregular-shaped parts manipulation on automotive assembly lines. The commercialization potential is estimated to be on the order of one billion dollars. From an educational standpoint, this project not only helps train the senior personnel on the project about entrepreneurship, but also helps instill entrepreneurship principles and practices among students and researchers. This I-Corps project aims to identify the technical challenges faced by the industry on robotic gripping systems, which could help formulate ensuing application-driven fundamental problems pertaining to soft grasping. Soft grasping of objects with various shapes and stiffness has been a longstanding challenge in the robotics field. The approach proposed here is a spinoff of an ongoing NSF project, where novel smart materials and adhesion mechanics are integrated to realize a "core-shell" composite structure featured with dynamically tunable reversible dry adhesion. By modulating the stiffness of the "core" made of smart materials, the manner in which force is distributed to the interface between the composite and the adhered object is altered, and as a result, the effective adhesion strength of the adhered interface is changed.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.