A Bio-inspired Soft Robotic Arm: Kinematic Modeling and Hydrodynamic Experiments

Gong, Zizheng; Cheng, Jiahui; Chen, Xingyu; Sun, Wenguang; Fang, Xi; Hu, Kainan; Xie, Zhexin; Wang, Tianmiao; Wen, Li

doi:10.1007/s42235-018-0016-x

Cited by 51 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Gong et al designed a soft underwater robotic arm which with inner chambers and PDMS core. 53 The chamber worked as the longitudinal muscle in the elephant trunk while the PDMS core as the rectus muscle. Figure 7(b) presents its prototype.…”

Section: State-of-the-art Of the Design Of Soft Underwater Manipulatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

For safe and compliant interaction: an outlook of soft underwater manipulators

Wang

Cui

2020

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part M:

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As underwater missions become more and more complex, novel underwater manipulators with better performance are demanding. Soft underwater manipulators are judged to be the development direction and expected to have better performance in safe and compliant interaction with the target in underwater operations such as biological sampling. This paper provides an overview on the state-of-the-art of both hard and soft underwater manipulators to give a prospect for soft underwater manipulators. Key technologies in the design of soft underwater manipulators are identified, including the configuration design, actuator design and stiffening design of them.

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Section: State-of-the-art Of the Design Of Soft Underwater Manipulatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

For safe and compliant interaction: an outlook of soft underwater manipulators

Wang

Cui

2020

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part M:

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“…Octobot, a soft robot developed by Harvard University in 2016, adopted a microchannel chemical reaction drive, relied on a specific chemical reaction to provide drive energy, and used a microchannel embedded in a soft robot to control energy transmission to realize its driving motion [18]. The pneumatic underwater manipulator and flexible gripper developed by Wen et al from Beihang University from 2016 to 2018 were composed of two curved segments, an elongated segment, and a flexible gripper, which could realize three-dimensional space movements and perform underwater grasping tasks [19][20][21].…”

Section: A Structure and Design Of Soft Actuators And Robotmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fabrication, Mechanical Modeling, and Experiments of a 3D-Motion Soft Actuator for Flexible Sensing

et al. 2020

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This paper introduces the modular design and manufacturing method, mechanical model, and test verification of a new type of soft actuator driven by fluid. First, the modular design scheme and driving principle of omnidirectional bending and elongation of the soft actuator are described. Three print-based elastic air cavities constrained by fire lines are distributed radially inside the actuator. The actuator can complete the 3 DOF motions of omnidirectional bending and elongation. From the basic principle of material mechanics, a novel mechanical model of the soft elastomer actuator is established. By numerically solving the nonlinear model, the relationship between actuator elongation/bending angle and driving pressure is obtained. The theoretical prediction and test results show that the deformation of the actuator exhibits a linear relationship with pressure when the chambers are charged. Additionally, the maximum allowable load force on the actuator terminal also exhibits good linearity when the driving pressure increases. Furthermore, the established mechanical model, which considers gravity effects can more accurately describe the features of bend and elongation of the actuator. The results shows that the proposed model is more convenient than the FEM models. This study provides theoretical support for accurate control of a soft actuator.

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“…The underwater soft manipulator consists four sections: two bending segments, one elongation segment, and one soft gripper (Figure 2b). This bending segments and elongation segment are designed to have a circle shaped cross-section to decrease the hydrodynamic resistance in the water flow (Gong et al, 2018b). Each bending segment has three individual chambers.…”

Section: The Underwater Soft Manipulatormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This article is an extended version of our previous paper on IEEE Robosoft 2018 (Gong et al, 2018b). Permission of reusing the material is authorized by IEEE.…”

Section: Acknowledgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Opposite-Bending-and-Extension Soft Robotic Manipulator for Delicate Grasping in Shallow Water

et al. 2019

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Collecting seafood animals (such as sea cucumbers, sea echini, scallops, etc.) cultivated in shallow water (water depth: ∼30 m) is a profitable and an emerging field that requires robotics for replacing human divers. Soft robotics have several promising features (e.g., safe contact with the objects, lightweight, etc.) for performing such a task. In this paper, we implement a soft manipulator with an opposite-bending-and-extension structure. A simple and rapid inverse kinematics method is proposed to control the spatial location and trajectory of the underwater soft manipulator's end effector. We introduce the actuation hardware of the prototype, and then characterize the trajectory and workspace. We find that the prototype can well track fundamental trajectories such as a line and an arc. Finally, we construct a small underwater robot and demonstrate that the underwater soft manipulator successfully collects multiple irregular shaped seafood animals of different sizes and stiffness at the bottom of the natural oceanic environment (water depth: ∼10 m).

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A Bio-inspired Soft Robotic Arm: Kinematic Modeling and Hydrodynamic Experiments

Cited by 51 publications

References 40 publications

For safe and compliant interaction: an outlook of soft underwater manipulators

For safe and compliant interaction: an outlook of soft underwater manipulators

Fabrication, Mechanical Modeling, and Experiments of a 3D-Motion Soft Actuator for Flexible Sensing

An Opposite-Bending-and-Extension Soft Robotic Manipulator for Delicate Grasping in Shallow Water

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