Systematic engineering design helps creating new soft machines

Abstract

Soft robotics is an emerging field in the robotics community which deals with completely new types of robots. However, often new soft robotic designs depend on the ingenuity of the engineer rather being systematically derived. For this reason, in order to support the engineer in the design process, we present a design methodology for general technical systems in this paper and explain it in depth in the context of soft robotics. The design methodology consists of a combination of state-of-the-art engineering concepts that are arranged in such a way that the engineer is guided through the design process. The effectiveness of a systematic approach in soft robotics is illustrated on the design of a new gecko-inspired, climbing soft robot.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40638-018-0088-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A Gait Pattern Generator for Closed-Loop Position Control of a Soft Walking Robot

“…The straight gait of the robot can be described by a single variable—the reference bending angle of the torso . All other variables of the joint space can then be described as a function of by means of the gait law for the straight gait, which was derived in Seibel and Schiller ( 2018 ):…”

Toward a Gecko-Inspired, Climbing Soft Robot

“…Table 1 shows all necessary parameters for the design of both the large and the small version. The design of the small prototype is basically the same as described in Seibel and Schiller (2018). In addition to the size variation, two more details have changed.…”

“…It can clearly be seen that the change in orientation within a cycle for the small version is larger than for the large version. The linear model for straight gait from Seibel and Schiller (2018) predicts the maximum displacement of the fixed feet for the poses at 25% and 75% of cycle time (i.e., approximately at the points of maximum orientation). This reveals how the problem of the model is solved in reality: the robot changes its orientation.…”

“…This raises the question why there are no universal, climbing soft robots, as they can easily survive a fall-Universal in the sense that they can move in any direction. In Seibel and Schiller (2018), we therefore introduced a soft robot that is specifically designed for climbing. Figure 1A shows a slightly modified version of the robot presented therein.…”

Recycling-Oriented Design in Soft Robotics

“…This results in a much shorter product life and thus higher environmental impact. A product must therefore be designed in such a way that units can be removed and repaired and parts replaced with new or regenerated ones; a modular design is required [38,39]. Applications of FEAs, such as four-legged robots or grippers, can be functionally divided into the limbs that perform the movements and the main body that holds the limbs.…”