Everting, soft growing vine robots benefit from reduced friction with their environment, which allows them to navigate challenging terrain. Vine robots can use air pouches attached to their sides for lateral steering. However, when all pouches are serially connected, the whole robot can only perform one constant curvature in free space. It must contact the environment to navigate through obstacles along paths with multiple turns. This work presents a multi-segment vine robot that can navigate complex paths without interacting with its environment. This is achieved by a new steering method that selectively actuates each single pouch at the tip, providing high degrees of freedom with few control inputs. A small magnetic valve connects each pouch to a pressure supply line. A motorized tip mount uses an interlocking mechanism and motorized rollers on the outer material of the vine robot. As each valve passes through the tip mount, a permanent magnet inside the tip mount opens the valve so the corresponding pouch is connected to the pressure supply line at the same moment. Novel cylindrical pneumatic artificial muscles (cPAMs) are integrated into the vine robot and inflate to a cylindrical shape for improved bending characteristics compared to other state-of-the art vine robots. The motorized tip mount controls a continuous eversion speed and enables controlled retraction. A final prototype was able to repeatably grow into different shapes and hold these shapes. We predict the path using a model that assumes a piecewise constant curvature along the outside of the multi-segment vine robot. The proposed multi-segment steering method can be extended to other soft continuum robot designs.
翻译:软软增长的藤质机器人从环境的减少摩擦中受益, 使得它们能够绕过具有挑战性的地形。 藤质机器人可以使用附在两侧的空袋作为横向方向。 但是, 当所有邮袋串连起来时, 整个机器人只能在自由空间中执行一个固定的曲度。 它必须联系环境, 沿着路径绕过障碍, 多转弯。 这项工作展示一个多层的软密封藤机器人, 可以在不与环境互动的情况下绕过复杂路径。 这是通过一种新的指导方法实现的, 该方法有选择地在顶端操作每个单袋, 提供高自由度且没有多少控制投入。 一个小磁阀将每个邮袋连接到压力供应线。 一个小型的磁性阀将每个邮袋连接到一个压力供应线线线。 当每个阀通过多圈时, 一个固定的磁性软性软体机器人机器人机器人机器人机器人可以同时连接到压力供应线。 将一个稳定的软质的螺旋性机械性肌肉肌肉肌肉肌肉(cPAMM) 融入了藤质模型中, 并且将一个固定的螺旋式的螺旋式的螺旋, 将一个螺状的螺状的螺状的螺旋到另一个的螺旋到一个螺旋式的螺旋的螺旋的螺旋到一个固定的形状。