Title
Design of a 3D-printed soft robot with posture and steering control
Abstract
Both postural maintenance and rhythm generation are keys to generating adaptive behavior in all animals. This is particularly evident in soft animals such as caterpillars, worm and flatworms that are capable of moving freely in all directions and adopting intricate postures. They can also exploit three-dimensional deformations and nonlinear structural properties to move in complex environments and to respond to external forces. These capabilities have inspired a new interest in using soft materials in robotic applications but highly deformable materials create significant design and control problems. In previous work the authors have developed a 3D-printed soft (3D-PS) robot, inspired by caterpillars, as a platform to investigate methods for controlling soft robots. The previous version of the robot is able to reproduce the different gait patterns (inching and crawling motion) of caterpillars by changing temporal difference in the rhythmic deformations of different body parts. In this paper, we have added posture control to the 3D-PS robot together with a steering capability. Experimental results show that although posture and steering are usually related, elastic and continuum properties of the soft body can produce more complex and versatile behaviors.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1109/ICRA.2014.6907272
Robotics and Automation
Keywords
Field
DocType
adaptive control,control system synthesis,deformation,mobile robots,motion control,3D-PS robot,3D-printed soft robot design,adaptive behavior,caterpillars,complex environments,crawling motion,deformable materials,external forces,flatworms,gait patterns,inching motion,nonlinear structural properties,postural maintenance,posture control,rhythm generation,rhythmic deformations,robotic applications,soft animals,soft materials,steering capability,steering control,temporal difference,three-dimensional deformations
Control theory,Simulation,Control engineering,Engineering,Robot,Steering control
Conference
Volume
Issue
ISSN
2014
1
1050-4729
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
4
0.55
5
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Takuya Umedachi17615.88
Trimmer, B.A.240.55