ケータロボ?ロボタピラー?ループや屈曲部を軽々と這い回る(Caterbot? Robotapillar? It crawls with ease through loops and bends)

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2024-05-06 プリンストン大学

ケータロボ?ロボタピラー?ループや屈曲部を軽々と這い回る(Caterbot? Robotapillar? It crawls with ease through loops and bends)
The robot’s segments can flatten and extend into cylinders. Photos by Frank Wojciechowski.

プリンストン大学とノースカロライナ州立大学の研究チームが、昔の紙折り技術と現代の材料科学を融合させ、自在に曲がりくねる柔軟なロボットを開発しました。このロボットは、独立して動作する円筒形のモジュラー・セグメントで構成され、連結して長いユニットを形成することができます。また、前進や後退、貨物の持ち上げ、組み立てが可能で、単独または群れとして機能することができます。この技術は将来のソフトロボットが成長、修復、新機能を開発するための洞察を提供すると考えられています。

<関連情報>

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.

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