Magnetic Assembly of Soft Robots with Hard Components

Kwok, Sen Wai; Morin, Stephen A.; Mosadegh, Bobak; So, Ju‐Hee; Shepherd, Robert F.; Martínez, Ramsés V.; Smith, Barbara; Simeone, Felice C.; Stokes, Adam A.; Whitesides, George M.

doi:10.1002/adfm.201303047

Cited by 136 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…We have previously demonstrated the usefulness of pneumatics in the actuation of a variety of soft machines. [1,[4][5][6][7] The choice of which joint design to use in these structures depends on the intended positive operating pressure of the device and the material used to fabricate the tiles. We demonstrated a set of structures that were fabricated from combinations of PDMS and Ecoflex ® tiles that we operated at equilibrium pressures at or below ~115 kPa.…”

Section: Pneumatic Actuation Of Soft Structures Assembled From Tilesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[1,4,6,7] These soft devices require combinations of materials and structures that are sometimes difficult or impossible to fabricate using techniques such as soft lithographic molding. [8] This technique (or, rather, combination of techniques) is useful for fabricating planar structures with homogeneous 2 composition, but less efficient at generating hollow, three-dimensional (3D) structures, especially when they comprise multiple materials with different mechanical or physical properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[4] By designing systems that incorporate multiple, independently addressable pneu-nets, we have created soft machines and robots that are inexpensive, light weight, and simple to fabricate, design, and operate. [1,[4][5][6][7] In our previous demonstrations of pneu-net-based soft machines/robots, we relied exclusively on soft lithography for fabrication. In soft lithography a master is created (for soft machines we have usually fabricated the masters using 3D printing [24,25] ) and the topological features of the master are inversely replicated by casting and curing soft, elastomeric polymers inside them.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Elastomeric Tiles for the Fabrication of Inflatable Structures

Morin

Kwok

Lessing

et al. 2014

Adv Funct Materials

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This paper describes the fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) soft, inflatable structures from thin, two-dimensional (2D) tiles fabricated from elastomeric polymers. The tiles were connected using soft joints that increased the surface area available for gluing them together, and mechanically reinforced the structures to withstand the tensile forces associated with pneumatic actuation. The ability of the elastomeric polymer to withstand large deformations without failure made it possible to explore and implement new joint designs, for example "double-taper dovetail joints," that cannot be used with hard materials. This approach simplifies the fabrication of soft structures comprised of materials with different physical properties (e.g., stiffness, electrical conductivity, optical transparency), and provides the methods required to "program" the response of these structures to mechanical (e.g., pneumatic pressurization) and other physical (e.g., electrical) stimuli. The flexibility and modularity of this approach was demonstrated in a set of soft structures that expanded or buckled into distinct, predictable shapes when inflated or deflated. These structures combined easily to form extended systems with motions dependent on the configurations of the selected components, and, when fabricated with electrically conductive tiles, electronic circuits with pneumatically-active elements. This approach to the fabrication of hollow, 3D structures provides routes to new soft actuators.

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Section: Pneumatic Actuation Of Soft Structures Assembled From Tilesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Elastomeric Tiles for the Fabrication of Inflatable Structures

Morin

Kwok

Lessing

et al. 2014

Adv Funct Materials

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“…Multi-functional hybrid materials also demonstrated great potential in optics [29], electronics [30,31], soft robotics [32], mechanics [33,34], catalysis [35,36], sensors [37], environmental remediation [38], energy conversion and storage [39], electromagnetic interface (EMI) shielding [27], and drug delivery [40] in the forms of 0D nanoparticles, 1D fiber/tube, 2D coating/membrane and 3D framework (Fig. 3).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing advanced composites and hybrid materials

Liu

Zhu

et al. 2017

Adv Compos Hybrid Mater

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It is our great pleasure to introduce the inaugural issue of Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials, a new interdisciplinary journal published by Springer Nature. Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials provides a dedicated publishing platform for academic and industry researchers and offers the composites and hybrid materials field an opportunity to publish their creative research to exchange newly generated knowledge.With the rapid advancement of materials science and engineering in twenty-first century, especially the development of nanoscience and nanotechnology, the new discoveries from diverse disciplines merge into a central hub of composites and hybrid materials. Composites are defined as materials with two or more constituents with significantly different physical or chemical properties (Fig. 1a). Composites cover a wider range of dimensions of mixing components, while hybrid usually refers to the constituents at the nanometer or molecular level. The revolution of new technologies in composites has generated great impact in every single corner of our daily life [1,2].Based on the matrix material, composites can be categorized into polymer composites, ceramic composites, carbon composites, and metal composites. One example of the composite from each category is provided: polymer composites in Fig. 1b [3, 4], ceramic composites in Fig. 1c [5], metal composites in Fig. 1d [6], and carbon composites in Fig. 1e [7]. Nanocomposites, with one dimension of any constituent less than 100 nm, experienced a fast development over the past two decades. The large specific surface area and unique physicochemical properties of nanofillers allow flexible design of nanocomposites with unprecedented functionalities. It is expected that research in nanocomposites will keep its energetic momentum in the next few decades since there are still a lot of challenges that need to be addressed with combined research efforts [8][9][10][11][12]. The integration of different constituents into one unit does not simply generate a mixed property, but also creates some new physicochemical properties that were not present in the individual components. For example, negative permittivity has been discovered in engineered polymer and carbon nanocomposites [13][14][15], which is not existed in traditional materials.

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“…Specific examples include modular soft robotic components attached through magnetic connections (Kwok et al, 2014) or mechanical connectors (Onal and Rus, 2012;Ranzani et al, 2013). Although these methods provide a reasonable amount of design freedom during assembly, they involve pre-fabricated soft pneumatic modules and may not provide students with the opportunity to construct soft robots from scratch.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Modular, Reconfigurable Mold for a Soft Robotic Gripper Design Activity

et al. 2017

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Soft robotics is an emerging field with strong potential to serve as an educational tool due to its advantages such as low costs and shallow learning curves. In this paper, we introduce a modular and reconfigurable mold for flexible design of pneumatic soft robotic grippers. By using simple assembly kits, students at all levels are able to design and construct soft robotic grippers that vary in function and performance. The process of constructing the modular mold enables students to understand how design choices impact system performance. Our unique modular mold allows students to select the number and length of fingers in a gripper, as well as to adjust the internal geometry of the pneumatic actuator cavity, which dictates how and where bending of a finger occurs. In addition, the mold may be deconstructed and reconfigured, which allows for fast iterative design and lowers material costs (since a new mold does not need to be made to implement a design change). We further demonstrate the feasibility of the modular mold by implementing it in a soft robot design activity in classrooms and showing a sufficiently high rate of student success in designing and constructing a functional soft robotic gripper.

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Magnetic Assembly of Soft Robots with Hard Components

Cited by 136 publications

References 32 publications

Elastomeric Tiles for the Fabrication of Inflatable Structures

Elastomeric Tiles for the Fabrication of Inflatable Structures

Introducing advanced composites and hybrid materials

A Modular, Reconfigurable Mold for a Soft Robotic Gripper Design Activity

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