Jul 02, 2022 09:00:00

Introducing a soft robot that looks like pasta and moves forward while avoiding obstacles

Research teams at North Carolina State University and the University of Pennsylvania have developed a

soft robot that can move around without human or computer input. The research team has announced that soft robots that look like pasta also have the ability to clear obstacles and move forward.

Twisting for soft intelligent autonomous robot in unstructured environments | PNAS
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2200265119

You can see the movement of the developed soft robot in the following movie.

Rotini-like twisted soft robots self-navigate mazes --YouTube


In the movie, you can see the movement of the soft robot at 40x speed. This translucent and twisted tube-like thing is a soft robot made of liquid crystal elastomer . It starts rolling to the right with Suru Suru ……

When it hits the obstacle on the far right, it bends like a twist.

And this time it started rolling to the left.

I saw it hitting a round columnar obstacle at double speed.

After showing a movement that seems to be flipped when hit, it moves steadily.

When this soft robot is placed on a flat surface of 55 ° C or higher, the physical phenomenon that 'the contacting part contracts and the other parts do not contract' occurs, and the difference in contraction causes the robot to roll. The higher the temperature of the rolling plane, the larger the shrinkage difference and the faster the rolling speed. For example, the following is a soft robot rolled on the roof of a car that has been warmed by the sun.

It also rolls on a charcoal-fired net.

The researchers also said that they ran the soft robot in a maze-like environment. Then, it seems that it was possible to confirm how the soft robot captures the maze while hitting the wall, just as a robot vacuum cleaner goes through a complicated room.

You can also see how it rolls on the warmed sand and overcomes the gentle slope formed by the sand.

The image on the right below shows the temperature of the sand taken by thermography. You can see that the red part is the hotter part and the soft robot accelerates as it passes through this hotter part.

The research team says it is a great hint for the design of soft robots that can autonomously navigate complex and unmaintained environments such as devastated roads and harsh deserts.