A Novel Rescue Robot: Hybrid Soft and Rigid Structures for Narrow Space Searching

Wang, Xingsong; Zhang, Qi; Shen, Donghua; Chen, Jianfei

doi:10.1109/robio49542.2019.8961874

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Compared with existing foam soft actuators [30,32,33], the actuator in this study is superior in terms of deformation modes and application prospects. The foam actuator driven by negative pressure in this study had an output force of 7.2 N and a deformation effect of 47.9%, which is one of the largest among the soft pneumatic actuators based on the research by us and other scholars [6,9]. The foam actuator driven by negative pressure can achieve bending and contraction under reduced overall length without concern for the risk of overpressure which makes them more suitable for operation in tight environment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…Soft robots have become a hot topic of research in the robotics field owing to their unconstrained degrees of freedom, excellent deformation effect, relatively simple control, higher safety, and low cost. In contrast to the traditional rigid robotics, soft robots can quickly adapt to unstructured environments in high-tech fields such as medical rehabilitation [1][2][3][4], rescue detection [5][6][7], and bionics [8][9][10] and are more convenient for human-robot interactions in everyday environments such as classroom education [11,12] and recreation [13]. Soft robots are potentially applicable to a wide range of industries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lightweight Dual-Mode Soft Actuator Fabricated from Bellows and Foam Material

et al. 2022

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Foam-based soft actuators are lightweight and highly compressible, which make them an attractive option for soft robotics. A negative pressure drive would complement the advantages of foam actuators and improve the durability of the soft robotic system. In this study, a foam actuator was designed with a negative pressure pneumatic drive comprising bellows air chambers, a polyurethane foam body, and sealing layers at the head and tail. Experiments were performed to test the bending and contraction performances of the actuator with the foaming multiplier and air chamber length as variables. At air pressures of 0–90 kPa, the bending angle and contraction of the actuator increased with the foaming multiplier and number of air chamber sections. The designed actuator achieved a bending angle of 56.2° and contraction distance of 34 mm (47.9% of the total length) at 90 kPa, and the bending and contraction output forces were 3.5 and 7.2 N, respectively. A control system was built, and four soft robots were constructed with different numbers of actuators. In experiments, the robots successfully completed operations such as lifting, gripping, walking, and gesturing. The designed actuator is potentially applicable to debris capture, field rescue, and teaching in classrooms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lightweight Dual-Mode Soft Actuator Fabricated from Bellows and Foam Material

et al. 2022

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“…Recently, research has been actively conducted to apply the biological locomotion of snakes through mimicry to robots [3][4][5]. Furthermore, many researchers studied new gait types for snake robots that have higher locomotion efficiency than a biological snake or novel locomotion properties [6,7]. The scale geometry of snake robots has been studied to stabilize their motion [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There has been no research into the additional mechanisms or body shapes of a snake robot that can help snake robots to move efficiently on steep slopes, like those shown in Figure 1. In addition, the body shape of conventional snake robots is cylindrical or rectangular [1][2][3][4][5][6][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][17][18][19][20][21][22]. For this reason, when the snake robot moves sideways on the steep slope, the robot rolls down, and the stability is highly decreased.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Snake Robot with Driving Assistant Mechanism

et al. 2020

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Snake robots are composed of multiple links and joints and have a high degree of freedom. They can perform various motions and can overcome various terrains. Snake robots need additional driving algorithms and sensors that acquire terrain data in order to overcome rough terrains such as grasslands and slopes. In this study, we propose a driving assistant mechanism (DAM), which assists locomotion without additional driving algorithms and sensors. In this paper, we confirmed that the DAM prevents a roll down on a slope and increases the locomotion speed through dynamic simulation and experiments. It was possible to overcome grasslands and a 27 degrees slope without using additional driving controllers. In conclusion, we expect that a snake robot can conduct a wide range of missions well, such as exploring disaster sites and rough terrain, by using the proposed mechanism.

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