2024-05-06 プリンストン大学
The robot’s segments can flatten and extend into cylinders. Photos by Frank Wojciechowski.
＜関連情報＞
- https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2024/05/06/caterbot-robotapillar-it-crawls-ease-through-loops-and-bends
- https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2322625121
再プログラム可能な電熱アクチュエータを持つモジュラー型多自由度ソフト折り紙ロボット Modular multi-degree-of-freedom soft origami robots with reprogrammable electrothermal actuation
Shuang Wu, Tuo Zhao, Yong Zhu, and Glaucio H. Paulino
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Published:May 6, 2024
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2322625121
Significance
A plug-and-play soft modular origami robot is introduced, enabled by electrothermal actuation with highly bendable heaters. The heater, based on a stretchable silver nanowire conductor, exhibits large, reversible local bending along the crease line of the origami. Our modular origami robot draws inspiration from the segmented caterpillar body. By mimicking the rich kinematics of caterpillar segments, each robot module features reprogrammable actuation modes, i.e., extension/contraction and bending. The desired deformation modes of the modular units, bidirectional and/or steering, can be achieved on the fly. This work reports an effective actuation method that can be generally applied to origami structures (with creases) for soft robotics.
Abstract
Soft robots often draw inspiration from nature to navigate different environments. Although the inching motion and crawling motion of caterpillars have been widely studied in the design of soft robots, the steering motion with local bending control remains challenging. To address this challenge, we explore modular origami units which constitute building blocks for mimicking the segmented caterpillar body. Based on this concept, we report a modular soft Kresling origami crawling robot enabled by electrothermal actuation. A compact and lightweight Kresling structure is designed, fabricated, and characterized with integrated thermal bimorph actuators consisting of liquid crystal elastomer and polyimide layers. With the modular design and reprogrammable actuation, a multiunit caterpillar-inspired soft robot composed of both active units and passive units is developed for bidirectional locomotion and steering locomotion with precise curvature control. We demonstrate the modular design of the Kresling origami robot with an active robotic module picking up cargo and assembling with another robotic module to achieve a steering function. The concept of modular soft robots can provide insight into future soft robots that can grow, repair, and enhance functionality.
