Cargando…

A Soft Robot Driven by a Spring-Rolling Dielectric Elastomer Actuator with Two Bristles

Confined space searches such as pipeline inspections are widely demanded in various scenarios, where lightweight soft robots with inherent compliance to adapt to unstructured environments exhibit good potential. We proposed a tubular soft robot with a simple structure of a spring-rolled dielectric e...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Du, Yangyang, Wu, Xiaojun, Xue, Jiasheng, Chen, Xingyu, Cao, Chongjing, Gao, Xing
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10051427/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36985026
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi14030618
_version_ 1785014883525328896
author Du, Yangyang
Wu, Xiaojun
Xue, Jiasheng
Chen, Xingyu
Cao, Chongjing
Gao, Xing
author_facet Du, Yangyang
Wu, Xiaojun
Xue, Jiasheng
Chen, Xingyu
Cao, Chongjing
Gao, Xing
author_sort Du, Yangyang
collection PubMed
description Confined space searches such as pipeline inspections are widely demanded in various scenarios, where lightweight soft robots with inherent compliance to adapt to unstructured environments exhibit good potential. We proposed a tubular soft robot with a simple structure of a spring-rolled dielectric elastomer (SRDE) and compliant passive bristles. Due to the compliance of the bristles, the proposed robots can work in pipelines with inner diameters both larger and smaller than the one of the bristles. Firstly, the nonlinear dynamic behaviors of the SRDE were investigated experimentally. Then, we fabricated the proposed robot with a bristle diameter of 19 mm and then studied its performance in pipelines on the ground with inner diameters of 18 mm and 20 mm. When the pipeline’s inner diameter was less than the outer diameter of the bristles, the bristles remained in the state of bending and the robot locomotion is mainly due to anisotropic friction (1.88 and 0.88 body lengths per second horizontally and vertically, respectively, in inner diameter of 18 mm and 0.06 body length per second in that of 16 mm). In the case of the pipeline with the larger inner diameter, the bristles were not fully constrained, and a small bending moment applied on the lower bristle legs contributed to the robot’s locomotion, leading to a high velocity (2.78 body lengths per second in 20 mm diameter acrylic pipe). In addition, the robot can work in varying geometries, such as curving pipes (curve radius ranges from 0.11 m to 0.31 m) at around two body lengths per second horizontally and on the ground at 3.52 body lengths per second, showing promise for pipeline or narrow space inspections.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10051427
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-100514272023-03-30 A Soft Robot Driven by a Spring-Rolling Dielectric Elastomer Actuator with Two Bristles Du, Yangyang Wu, Xiaojun Xue, Jiasheng Chen, Xingyu Cao, Chongjing Gao, Xing Micromachines (Basel) Article Confined space searches such as pipeline inspections are widely demanded in various scenarios, where lightweight soft robots with inherent compliance to adapt to unstructured environments exhibit good potential. We proposed a tubular soft robot with a simple structure of a spring-rolled dielectric elastomer (SRDE) and compliant passive bristles. Due to the compliance of the bristles, the proposed robots can work in pipelines with inner diameters both larger and smaller than the one of the bristles. Firstly, the nonlinear dynamic behaviors of the SRDE were investigated experimentally. Then, we fabricated the proposed robot with a bristle diameter of 19 mm and then studied its performance in pipelines on the ground with inner diameters of 18 mm and 20 mm. When the pipeline’s inner diameter was less than the outer diameter of the bristles, the bristles remained in the state of bending and the robot locomotion is mainly due to anisotropic friction (1.88 and 0.88 body lengths per second horizontally and vertically, respectively, in inner diameter of 18 mm and 0.06 body length per second in that of 16 mm). In the case of the pipeline with the larger inner diameter, the bristles were not fully constrained, and a small bending moment applied on the lower bristle legs contributed to the robot’s locomotion, leading to a high velocity (2.78 body lengths per second in 20 mm diameter acrylic pipe). In addition, the robot can work in varying geometries, such as curving pipes (curve radius ranges from 0.11 m to 0.31 m) at around two body lengths per second horizontally and on the ground at 3.52 body lengths per second, showing promise for pipeline or narrow space inspections. MDPI 2023-03-08 /pmc/articles/PMC10051427/ /pubmed/36985026 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi14030618 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Du, Yangyang
Wu, Xiaojun
Xue, Jiasheng
Chen, Xingyu
Cao, Chongjing
Gao, Xing
A Soft Robot Driven by a Spring-Rolling Dielectric Elastomer Actuator with Two Bristles
title A Soft Robot Driven by a Spring-Rolling Dielectric Elastomer Actuator with Two Bristles
title_full A Soft Robot Driven by a Spring-Rolling Dielectric Elastomer Actuator with Two Bristles
title_fullStr A Soft Robot Driven by a Spring-Rolling Dielectric Elastomer Actuator with Two Bristles
title_full_unstemmed A Soft Robot Driven by a Spring-Rolling Dielectric Elastomer Actuator with Two Bristles
title_short A Soft Robot Driven by a Spring-Rolling Dielectric Elastomer Actuator with Two Bristles
title_sort soft robot driven by a spring-rolling dielectric elastomer actuator with two bristles
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10051427/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36985026
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi14030618
work_keys_str_mv AT duyangyang asoftrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT wuxiaojun asoftrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT xuejiasheng asoftrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT chenxingyu asoftrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT caochongjing asoftrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT gaoxing asoftrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT duyangyang softrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT wuxiaojun softrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT xuejiasheng softrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT chenxingyu softrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT caochongjing softrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles
AT gaoxing softrobotdrivenbyaspringrollingdielectricelastomeractuatorwithtwobristles