Electrically Activated Soft Robots: Speed Up by Rolling.

Journal: Soft robotics
Published Date: Nov 11, 2020

Abstract

Soft robots show excellent body compliance, adaptability, and mobility when coping with unstructured environments and human-robot interactions. However, the moving speed for soft locomotion robots is far from that of their rigid partners. Rolling locomotion can provide a promising solution for developing high-speed robots. Based on different rolling mechanisms, three rolling soft robot (RSR) prototypes with advantages of simplicity, lightweight, fast rolling speed, good compliance, and shock resistance are fabricated by using dielectric elastomer actuators. The experimental results demonstrate that the impulse-based and gravity-based RSRs can move both stably and continuously on the ground with a maximum speed higher than 1 blps (body length per second). The ballistic RSR exhibits a high rolling speed of ∼4.59 blps. And during its accelerating rolling process, the instantaneous rolling speed of the robot prototype reaches about 0.65 m/s (13.21 blps), which is much faster than most of the previously reported locomotion robots driven by soft responsive materials. The structure design and implementation methods based on different rolling mechanisms presented can provide guidance and inspiration for creating new, fast-moving, and hybrid mobility soft robots.

Authors

  • Wen-Bo Li
    State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
  • Wen-Ming Zhang
    State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
  • Qiu-Hua Gao
    State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
  • Qiwei Guo
    Shanghai Institute of Aerospace Systems Engineering, Shanghai, China.
  • Song Wu
    National Engineering Research Center for Big Data Technology and System, Services Computing Technology and System Lab, Cluster and Grid Computing Lab, School of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
  • Hong-Xiang Zou
    State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
  • Zhi-Ke Peng
    State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
  • Guang Meng
    State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.

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