8 accepted papers
The inherent compliance of soft mobile robots makes them a safe option for interaction with humans and fragile environments. To expand their possibilities around our daily life, it is desirable for them to have enhanced traversal ability with safe structure and movement. To meet this requirement, we
This letter presents a novel tube-type pneumatic helical actuator generating complex 3-dimensional torsional motions. Inspired by the molecular structure of DNA, this actuator is fabricated by combining two helical contraction actuators, introduced in our previous research, in parallel and covered b
This letter presents a soft compact valve inducing self-excited vibration to be aimed for simplification of piping, power saving and downsizing the total system for pneumatic soft mobile robots generating traveling waves. The presented device is composed of flat tubes, permanent magnets, and restrai
Soft contraction actuator has always been an important research field in soft robotics. This paper presents a novel soft contraction actuator which can realize high-ratio contraction when pressurized by pneumatic power. This actuator can be easily made by soft materials including rubber tube, one-wa…
This paper discusses the design method of a self-propelled catheter with thin diameter of 2.6mm, aimed for moving and steering in the bronchi. As the basic configuration, the proposed catheter is composed of an inner tube and McKibben artificial muscles. It can propel by generating travelling waves…
In this paper, we propose an epoch-making soft sheet actuator called “Wavy-sheet”. Inspired by gastropod's locomotion, Wavy-sheet can generate continuous traveling waves on the whole soft body. It aims to be applied to a mobile soft mat capable of moving and transporting without damaging the object…
This paper presents the design and implementation of a lightweight and powerful fingers actuator capable of grasping various shaped objects. The proposed fingers actuator is designed on the underactuated structure formed by a thumb and an index finger, which are composed of a zigzag tube with one ch
This paper presents an aerial robot with a manipulator to implement door opening mission. Although general aerial robots have advantages of flying in the three-dimensional space freely, they don't have any capability of moving to another room when the door is closed. To overcome this problem, we pro…