A Mechatronics-Embedded Pneumatic Soft Modular Robot Powered via Single Air Tube

Yu Zhang,Yubin Liu,Yulin Wang,Yanhe Zhu,Dongyang Bie,Tianjiao Zheng,Jie Zhao,Xin Sui

doi:10.3390/app9112260

Abstract

Soft modular robots have advantages, including infinite degrees of freedom and various configurations. Most soft robots are actuated by inflating air pressure into their chambers. However, each chamber is connected to a tube that provides the air supply, which incurs drag and intertwining problems that influence the robot’s motion. Moreover, the number of chambers directly affects the deformations and motion capabilities of the robot. Therefore, the crucial issue is the structure of a soft modular robot that can share an air source without reducing the number of chambers and can guarantee the deformations of the robot. In this paper, a novel mechatronics-embedded soft module was designed and manufactured, which has an air supply sharing function. Therefore, the soft modular robot can be powered via a single air tube. In addition, a wireless platform to control the air pressure of the module was built, and an experimental model was established to obtain the relationship between the deformation and pressure of the module. Four experiments were performed under different conditions. The experiments’ results indicate the bending capability of the module. Moreover, hooking object, twisting motion, and bionic gesture experiments demonstrate the validity of the module’s air pressure sharing function. Therefore, the air sharing supply approach proposed in this paper can be used as a reference to solve the tube drag problem of soft modular robots.

Highlights

The concept of modular robots has been proposed since the 1980s to solve the universal property and flexibility problems of robots with fixed configurations [1]
A modular robot consists of unified modules with the same structure and function to realize reconfigurable configurations for adapting to various tasks and changeable environments
Rigid modular robots have finite degrees of freedom, and rigid materials are dangerous for fragile objects and operating personnel

Summary

Introduction

The concept of modular robots has been proposed since the 1980s to solve the universal property and flexibility problems of robots with fixed configurations [1]. Many researchers have developed rigid modular robots, including Molecubes [2], Yamor [3], Polybot [4], ATRON [5], CONRO [6], M-TRAN [7], SuperBot [8], UBot [9,10], and Seremo [11]. These modular robots can alter their structure by connecting the different faces of their modules. The use of soft materials to replace rigid materials to manufacture modular robots is a novel research direction

Methods

Results

Conclusion