A Soft Collaborative Robot for Contact-based Intuitive Human Drag Teaching.

Journal: Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany)
Published Date: Apr 22, 2024

Abstract

Soft material-based robots, known for their safety and compliance, are expected to play an irreplaceable role in human-robot collaboration. However, this expectation is far from real industrial applications due to their complex programmability and poor motion precision, brought by the super elasticity and large hysteresis of soft materials. Here, a soft collaborative robot (Soft Co-bot) with intuitive and easy programming by contact-based drag teaching, and also with exceptional motion repeatability (< 0.30% of body length) and ultra-low hysteresis (< 2.0%) is reported. Such an unprecedented capability is achieved by a biomimetic antagonistic design within a pneumatic soft robot, in which cables are threaded to servo motors through tension sensors to form a self-sensing system, thus providing both precise actuation and dragging-aware collaboration. Hence, the Soft Co-bots can be first taught by human drag and then precisely repeat various tasks on their own, such as electronics assembling, machine tool installation, etc. The proposed Soft Co-bots exhibit a high potential for safe and intuitive human-robot collaboration in unstructured environments, promoting the immediate practical application of soft robots.

Authors

  • Shoulu Gong
    University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
  • Wenbo Li
    Foshan Xianhu Laboratory of the Advanced Energy Science and Technology Guangdong Laboratory, Xianhu Hydrogen Valley, Foshan 528200, China.
  • Jiahao Wu
  • Bohan Feng
    University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
  • Zhiran Yi
    State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
  • Xinyu Guo
    Keya Medical Co., Ltd, Longong, Shenzhen, China. Electronic address: xinyug@keyamedical.com.
  • Wenming Zhang
    State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211800, PR China; Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211800, PR China.
  • Lei Shao
    Key Laboratory for Control Theory & Applications in Complicated Systems, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China.

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