A modular approach to soft robots

Author

Onal, Cagdas D. ; Rus, Daniela

Author_Institution

Comput. Sci. & Artificial Intell. Lab., Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Cambridge, MA, USA

fYear

2012

fDate

24-27 June 2012

Firstpage

1038

Lastpage

1045

Abstract

This paper describes a modular approach to creating soft robotic systems. The basis of these systems is an elastomeric actuation element powered by direct mechanical energy in the form of pressurized fluids. Fluidic elastomer actuators are fast and inexpensive to fabricate and offer safety and adaptability to robotic systems. Arrangements of these units can yield arbitrarily complex motions and achieve various functionalities. Actuation power can be generated on-board by a pneumatic battery, which harnesses the catalyzed chemical decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into oxygen gas, for mobile implementations. The modular nature of these robots enable distributed sensing and computation elements. Composition techniques of such soft robots are defined. Example systems are demonstrated and analyzed.

Keywords

elastomers; electroactive polymer actuators; mobile robots; pneumatic actuators; actuation power; arbitrarily complex motions; catalyzed chemical decomposition; computation elements; direct mechanical energy; distributed sensing; elastomeric actuation element; fluidic elastomer actuators; hydrogen peroxide; mobile implementations; modular approach; oxygen gas; pneumatic battery; pressurized fluids; soft robotic systems; Actuators; Batteries; Pneumatic systems; Robot kinematics; Robot sensing systems;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), 2012 4th IEEE RAS & EMBS International Conference on

Conference_Location

Rome

ISSN

2155-1774

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1199-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/BioRob.2012.6290290

Filename

6290290