TY - JOUR
T1 - Piezoelectric Soft Robot Inchworm Motion by Tuning Ground Friction Through Robot Shape
T2 - Quasi-Static Modeling and Experimental Validation
AU - Zheng, Zhiwu
AU - Kumar, Prakhar
AU - Chen, Yenan
AU - Cheng, Hsin
AU - Wagner, Sigurd
AU - Chen, Minjie
AU - Verma, Naveen
AU - Sturm, James C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2004-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Electrically-driven soft robots based on piezoelectric actuators may enable compact form factors and maneuverability in complex environments. In most prior work, piezoelectric actuators are used to control a single degree of freedom. In this work, the coordinated activation of five independent piezoelectric actuators, attached to a common metal foil, is used to implement inchworm-inspired crawling motion in a robot that is less than 0.5 mm thick. The motion is based on the control of its friction to the ground through the robot's shape, in which one end of the robot (depending on its shape) is anchored to the ground by static friction, while the rest of its body expands or contracts. A complete analytical model of the robot shape, which includes gravity, and contact is developed to quantify the robot shape, friction, and displacement. After validation of the model by experiments, the robot's five actuators are collectively sequenced for inchworm-like forward and backward motion.
AB - Electrically-driven soft robots based on piezoelectric actuators may enable compact form factors and maneuverability in complex environments. In most prior work, piezoelectric actuators are used to control a single degree of freedom. In this work, the coordinated activation of five independent piezoelectric actuators, attached to a common metal foil, is used to implement inchworm-inspired crawling motion in a robot that is less than 0.5 mm thick. The motion is based on the control of its friction to the ground through the robot's shape, in which one end of the robot (depending on its shape) is anchored to the ground by static friction, while the rest of its body expands or contracts. A complete analytical model of the robot shape, which includes gravity, and contact is developed to quantify the robot shape, friction, and displacement. After validation of the model by experiments, the robot's five actuators are collectively sequenced for inchworm-like forward and backward motion.
KW - Biologically-inspired robots
KW - control
KW - learning for soft robots
KW - modeling
KW - piezoelectrics
KW - soft robot materials and design
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U2 - 10.1109/TRO.2024.3353035
DO - 10.1109/TRO.2024.3353035
M3 - Article
SN - 1552-3098
VL - 40
SP - 2339
EP - 2356
JO - IEEE Transactions on Robotics
JF - IEEE Transactions on Robotics
ER -