Abstract
Inflatable robots are becoming increasingly popular, especially in applications where safe interactions are a priority. However, designing multifunctional robots that can operate with a single pressure input is challenging. A potential solution is to couple inflatables with passive valves that can harness the flow characteristics to create functionality. In this study, simple, easy to fabricate, lightweight, and inexpensive mechanical valves are presented that harness viscous flow and snapping arch principles. The mechanical valves can be fully integrated on‐board, enabling the control of the incoming airflow to realize multifunctional robots that operate with a single pressure input, with no need for electronic components, cables, or wires. By means of three robotic demos and guided by a numerical model, the capabilities of the valves are demonstrated and optimal input profiles are identified to achieve prescribed functionalities. The study enriches the array of available mechanical valves for inflatable robots and enables new strategies to realize multifunctional robots with on‐board flow control.
Highlights
Inflatable robots are becoming increasingly popular, especially in applications control of inflatable soft robots is essential to the advancement of the field
From minimally invasive surgical tools[1,2,3,4] and assistive tensive library of elements would be ideal in order to expand the devices,[5,6,7,8] to compliant grippers[9,10,11,12] and video game add- capabilities of soft robots that can operate without the need of ons,[13,14,15] inflatable soft robots have claimed an entire domain electronic components
As and snapping arch principles, can be fully integrated on-board such, the development of strategies for an efficient actuation and and enable the control of the incoming airflow to realize multifunctional robots that operate with a single pressure input and
Summary
By varying the mounting angle θplate to 0° one can transform the hysteretic valve into a bistable one, which switches state and remains open even when the input pressure is removed To realize such bistable valve and have it operating at around 20 kPa, we reduce the thickness of the metallic plate to tplate = 0.05 mm (while keeping lplate = 17.5 mm and wplate = 5 mm). This arch remains curved upwards for pinput < 20 kPa. for low pressure inputs the measured outlet pressure. A large negative pressure impulse is needed to close this valve (see Figure S14, Supporting Information for additional details about the effect of geometric parameters on the snapping response of our hysteretic and bistable valves)
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