Design of an Active Flexible Spine for Wall Climbing Robot Using Pneumatic Soft Actuators
Source abstract
Abstract
Wall climbing robots can be used to undertake missions in many unstructured environments. However, current wall climbing robots have mobility difficulties such as in the turning or accelarating. One of the main reasons for the limitations is the poor flexibility of the spines. Soft robotic technology can actively enable structure deformation and stiffness varations, which provides a solution for the design of active flexible spines. This research utilizes pneumatic soft actuators to design a flexible spine with the abilities of actively bending and twisting by each joint. Using bending and torsion moment equilibriums, respectively, from air pressure to material deformations, the bending and twisting models for a single actuator with respect to different pressure are obtained. The theoretical models are verified by finite-element method simulations and experimental tests. In addition, the bending and twisiting motions of single joint and whole spine are analytically modeled. The results show that the bionic spine can perform desired deformations in accordance with the applied pressure on specified chambers. The variations of the stiffness are also numerically assessed. Finally, the effectiveness of the bionic flexible spine for actively producing sequenced motions as biological spine is experimentally validated. This work demonstrated that the peneumatic spine is potential to improve the spine flexibility of wall climbing robot.
Source: openaire · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Soft Robotics and Applications · Robot Manipulation and Learning · Prosthetics and Rehabilitation Robotics
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (32)
Show source-provided references
1. Beck, H. K., Schultz, J. T., & Clemente, C. J. (2022). A bio-inspired robotic climbing robot to understand kinematic and morphological determinants for an optimal climbing gait. Bioinspiration and Biomimetics., 17, 016005.10.1088/1748-3190/ac370f ↗
2. Ijspeert, A. J. (2014). Biorobotics: Using robots to emulate and investigate agile locomotion. Science, 346, 196–203.10.1126/science.1254486 ↗
3. Horvat, T., Melo, K., & Ijspeert, A. J. (2017). Spine controller for a sprawling posture robot. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters., 2, 1195–1202.10.1109/LRA.2017.2664898 ↗
4. Schiller, L., Seibel, A., & Schlattmann, J. (2019). Toward a gecko-inspired, climbing soft robot. Frontiers in Neurorobotics., 13, 1–9.10.3389/fnbot.2019.00106 ↗
5. Takuma, T., Ikeda, M., & Masuda, T. (2010). Facilitating multi-modal locomotion in a quadruped robot utilizing passive oscillation of the spine structure (pp. 4940–4945). Taipei: IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.
6. Wang, S., Zhu, Q., Xiong, R., & Chu, J. (2014). Flexible robotic spine actuated by shape memory alloy. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems., 11, 56.10.5772/58399 ↗
7. Seok, S., Wang, A., Chuah, M. Y., Hyun, D. J., Lee, J., Otten, D. M., & Lang, J. H. (2015). Design principles for energy-efficient legged locomotion and implementation on the MIT Cheetah robot. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics., 20, 1117–1129.10.1109/TMECH.2014.2339013 ↗
8. Morales Bieze, T., Kruszewski, A., Carrez, B., & Duriez, C. (2020). Design, implementation, and control of a deformable manipulator robot based on a compliant spine. International Journal of Robotics Research., 39, 1604–1619.10.1177/0278364920910487 ↗
9. Haomachai, W., Shao, D., Wang, W., Ji, A., Dai, Z., & Manoonpong, P. (2021). Lateral undulation of the bendable body of a gecko-inspired robot for energy-efficient inclined surface climbing. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 6, 7918–7925.10.1109/LRA.2021.3101519 ↗
10. Wang, W., Ji, A., Dai, Z., Qin, G., Zhang, X., Ren, T., & Han, Q. (2021). Angular variables of climbing geckos in two lateral undulation patterns. Zoology, 145, 125892.10.1016/j.zool.2020.125892 ↗
11. Wang, W., Ji, A., Manoonpong, P., Shen, H., Hu, J., Dai, Z., & Yu, Z. (2018). Lateral undulation of the flexible spine of sprawling posture vertebrates. Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology, 204, 707–719.10.1007/s00359-018-1275-z ↗
12. Lipson, H. (2014). Challenges and opportunities for design, simulation, and fabrication of soft robots. Soft Robotics, 1, 21–27.10.1089/soro.2013.0007 ↗
13. Trivedi, D., Rahn, C. D., Kier, W. M., & Walker, I. D. (2008). Soft robotics: Biological inspiration, state of the art, and future research. Applied Bionics and Biomechanics., 5, 99–117.10.1155/2008/520417 ↗
14. Connolly, F., Walsh, C. J., & Bertoldi, K. (2017). Automatic design of fiber-reinforced soft actuators for trajectory matching. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America., 114, 51–56.10.1073/pnas.1615140114 ↗
15. Lu, M., Chen, G., He, Q., Zong, W., Yu, Z., & Dai, Z. (2021). Development of a hydraulic driven bionic soft gecko toe. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics., 13, 1–10.10.1115/1.4050292 ↗
16. Robertson, M. A., & Paik, J. (2017). New soft robots really suck: Vacuum-powered systems empower diverse capabilities. Science Robotics., 2, 1–12.10.1126/scirobotics.aan6357 ↗
17. Gong, Z., Fang, X., Chen, X., Cheng, J., Xie, Z., Liu, J., Chen, B., Yang, H., Kong, S., Hao, Y., Wang, T., Yu, J., & Wen, Li. (2021). A soft manipulator for efficient delicate grasping in shallow water: Modeling, control, and real-world experiments. International Journal of Robotics Research., 40, 449–469.10.1177/0278364920917203 ↗
18. Xiao, W., Hu, D., Chen, W., Yang, G., & Han, X. (2021). Modeling and analysis of bending pneumatic artificial muscle with multi-degree of freedom. Smart Materials and Structures., 30, 095018.10.1088/1361-665X/ac1939 ↗
19. Laver, R. J., Morales, C. H., Heinicke, M. P., Gamble, T., Longoria, K., Bauer, A. M., & Daza, J. D. (2020). The development of cephalic armor in the tokay gecko (Squamata: Gekkonidae: Gekko gecko). Journal of Morphology., 281, 213–228.10.1002/jmor.21092 ↗
20. Wang, W., Ji, A., Chen, G., Ravi, S., Shen, H., Gorb, S. N., & Dai, Z. (2020). Kinematics of gecko climbing: The lateral undulation pattern. Zoology, 140, 125768.10.1016/j.zool.2020.125768 ↗
21. Jiang, C., Wang, D., Zhao, B., Liao, Z., & Gu, G. (2021). Modeling and inverse design of bio-inspired multi-segment pneu-net soft manipulators for 3D trajectory motion. Applied Physics Reviews., 8, 041416.10.1063/5.0054468 ↗
22. Tian, Y., Zhang, Q., Cai, D., Chen, C., Zhang, J., & Duan, W. (2020). Theoretical modelling of soft robotic gripper with bioinspired fibrillar adhesives. Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures. https://doi.org/10.1080/15376494.2020.185748210.1080/15376494.2020.1857482 ↗
23. Wang, Z., Polygerinos, P., Overvelde, J. T. B., Galloway, K. C., Bertoldi, K., & Walsh, C. J. (2017). Interaction forces of soft fiber reinforced bending actuators. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics., 22, 717–727.10.1109/TMECH.2016.2638468 ↗
24. Wada, H. (2016). Structural mechanics and helical geometry of thin elastic composites. Soft Matter, 12, 7386–7397.10.1039/C6SM01090C ↗
25. Sedal, A., Bruder, D., Bishop-Moser, J., Vasudevan, R., & Kota, S. (2018). A continuum model for fiber-reinforced soft robot actuators. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics., 10, 1–9.10.1115/1.4039101 ↗
26. Xavier, M. S., Fleming, A. J., & Yong, Y. K. (2021). Finite element modeling of soft fluidic actuators: Overview and recent developments. Advanced Intelligent Systems., 3, 2000187.10.1002/aisy.202000187 ↗
27. Polygerinos, P., Wang, Z., Overvelde, J. T. B., Galloway, K. C., Wood, R. J., Bertoldi, K., & Walsh, C. J. (2015). Modeling of soft fiber-reinforced bending actuators. IEEE Transactions on Robotics., 31, 778–789.10.1109/TRO.2015.2428504 ↗
28. Han, S. T., Peng, H., Sun, Q., Venkatesh, S., Chung, K. S., Lau, S. C., Zhou, Y., & Roy, V. A. L. (2017). An overview of the development of flexible sensors. Advanced Materials., 29, 1–22.10.1002/adma.201700375 ↗
29. Wang, X., Yu, J., Cui, Y., & Li, W. (2021). Research progress of flexible wearable pressure sensors. Sensors and Actuators, A: Physical., 330, 112838.10.1016/j.sna.2021.112838 ↗
30. Grazioso, S., Di Gironimo, G., & Siciliano, B. (2019). A geometrically exact model for soft continuum robots: The finite element deformation space formulation. Soft Robotics., 6, 790–811.10.1089/soro.2018.0047 ↗
31. Cacucciolo, V., Renda, F., Poccia, E., Laschi, C., & Cianchetti, M. (2016). Modelling the nonlinear response of fibre-reinforced bending fluidic actuators. Smart Materials and Structures., 25, 105020.10.1088/0964-1726/25/10/105020 ↗
32. Webster, R. J., & Jones, B. A. (2010). Design and kinematic modeling of constant curvature continuum robots: A review. International Journal of Robotics Research., 29, 1661–1683.10.1177/0278364910368147 ↗