Dynamic morphological computation through damping design of soft material robots: application to under-actuated grippers
Antonio Di Lallo, Manuel Catalano, Manolo Garabini, Giorgio Grioli, Marco Gabiccini, Antonio Bicchi
Abstract
This article presents the design of soft material robots with tunable damping properties. This study derives from the investigation of an under-actuated dynamic approach involving multi-chamber pneumatic systems. The co-design of the mechanical parameters (stiffness and damping) of the system along with the time profile of the input allows to obtain different behaviors using a reduced number of feeding line. In this work we analyze via simulations and experiments several approaches to tune the damping of soft robots. The most effective solution employs a layer of granular material immersed in viscous oil within the chamber wall. This method has been employed to realize bending actuators with a continuous deformation pattern. Finally, we show an application involving a two-fingered gripper fed by a single pneumatic line, which is able to perform pinch and power grasp.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2019_dynamicmorpholog,
title = {Dynamic morphological computation through damping design of soft material robots: application to under-actuated grippers},
author = {Antonio Di Lallo and Manuel Catalano and Manolo Garabini and Giorgio Grioli and Marco Gabiccini and Antonio Bicchi},
booktitle = {ICRA 2019},
year = {2019}
}