TY - JOUR
T1 - Tunable Multi-Modal Locomotion in Soft Dielectric Elastomer Robots
AU - Duduta, Mihai
AU - Berlinger, Florian
AU - Nagpal, Radhika
AU - Clarke, David R.
AU - Wood, Robert J.
AU - Temel, F. Zeynep
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received October 14, 2019; accepted March 4, 2020. Date of publication March 30, 2020; date of current version April 17, 2020. This letter was recommended for publication by Associate Editor G. Gu and Editor C. Laschi upon evaluation of the reviewers’ comments. The work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Award no. DMR14-20570), in part by the Army Research Office (Award no. W911NF-15-1-0358), and in part by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. (Corresponding author: Mihai Duduta.) Mihai Duduta, Florian Berlinger, Radhika Nagpal, and Robert J. Wood are with the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA, and also with the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Boston, MA USA (e-mail: mduduta@g. harvard.edu; florian.berlinger@wyss.harvard.edu; rad@eecs.harvard.edu; rjwood@eecs.harvard.edu).
Funding Information:
The work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Award no. DMR14-20570), in part by the Army Research Office (Award no. W911NF-15-1-0358), and in part by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.
PY - 2020/7
Y1 - 2020/7
N2 - Soft robots require strong, yet flexible actuators for locomotion and manipulation tasks in unstructured environments. Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are well suited for these challenges in soft robotics because they operate as compliant capacitors and directly convert electrical energy into mechanical work, thereby allowing for simple design integration at a minimal footprint. In most demonstrations, DEA-based robots are limited to a single mode of locomotion, for example crawling, swimming, or jumping. In this work, we explored a range of actuation patterns in combination with a novel actuator design to enable multi-modal locomotion, whereby an actuation pattern is defined by an actuation voltage (proportional to the applied electric field) and frequency (the actuation rate). We present a DEA robot capable of three different gaits including crawling, hopping, and jumping. In addition, our robot can set itself upright by performing a roll, for example to prepare for the next jump after landing on its side. These results demonstrate that DEAs can be used as versatile experimental devices to validate locomotion models, in both natural and engineered systems.
AB - Soft robots require strong, yet flexible actuators for locomotion and manipulation tasks in unstructured environments. Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are well suited for these challenges in soft robotics because they operate as compliant capacitors and directly convert electrical energy into mechanical work, thereby allowing for simple design integration at a minimal footprint. In most demonstrations, DEA-based robots are limited to a single mode of locomotion, for example crawling, swimming, or jumping. In this work, we explored a range of actuation patterns in combination with a novel actuator design to enable multi-modal locomotion, whereby an actuation pattern is defined by an actuation voltage (proportional to the applied electric field) and frequency (the actuation rate). We present a DEA robot capable of three different gaits including crawling, hopping, and jumping. In addition, our robot can set itself upright by performing a roll, for example to prepare for the next jump after landing on its side. These results demonstrate that DEAs can be used as versatile experimental devices to validate locomotion models, in both natural and engineered systems.
KW - Soft robotics
KW - dielectric elastomer actuators
KW - impulsive system
KW - jumping robot
KW - multi-modal locomotion
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U2 - 10.1109/LRA.2020.2983705
DO - 10.1109/LRA.2020.2983705
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85084155683
SN - 2377-3766
VL - 5
SP - 3868
EP - 3875
JO - IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
JF - IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
IS - 3
M1 - 9050920
ER -