Design and Manufacturing of a Simple Soft Caterpillar Robot
Soft robots are increasingly gaining attention not only within the scientific community, but also in various real-world applications, due to their inherent compliance, ease of manufacture and favourable mechanical properties. These robots can manipulate a wide range of objects without the need for p...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Croatian Interdisciplinary Society
2024-10-01
|
| Series: | Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://indecs.eu/2024/indecs2024-pp633-645.pdf |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Soft robots are increasingly gaining attention not only within the scientific community, but also in various real-world applications, due to their inherent compliance, ease of manufacture and favourable mechanical properties. These robots can manipulate a wide range of objects without the need for precise feedback on position, orientation, force, and torque. Their low elastic moduli make them inherently safe. However, although the field of soft robotics has been well established now, there is still a significantly smaller number of successfully realized applications in the domain of mobile soft robotics.
This article presents a detailed development process of a tethered mobile caterpillar-like soft robot. A single part mould is designed and used to cast the silicone body of the robot with integrated four Shape Memory Alloy tendons, allowing generation of the inching motion pattern. The detailed analysis of the manufacturing process for robot fabrication, with the necessary hardware and software used for robot control is presented. Experimental verification shows usability of presented approach, but also reveals limitations mainly due to insufficient cooling of the Shape Memory Alloy tendons which limits the number of cycles per time. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1334-4684 1334-4676 |