Skin Development And Thermal Performance Evaluation Of An Intelligent Toy Robot

There is an increasing demand for service robots that accompany children and the elderly.The human-robot interaction depends partly on the materials of robot skin,and soft textile materials can better serve service robots’ interaction with people.The purpose of this study is to develop skin for a toy robot,meeting the requirements to be soft,fit and easy for heat dissipation.The iSGHP was used to test thermal resistance of various textile materials.In the environment with ambient temperature 20℃,relative humidity 60%,and wind speeds of 0.4 m/s and 1 m/s,the thermal performance of the robot of various skin conditions:no skin,skin of 3D sandwich knitted material,and skin of flannel fabric was investigated.The infrared thermal camera and temperature recorder were used to collect temperature on skin surface and inside as well,during 30 min movement of the robot.It was concluded as follows.1)The 3D knitted fabric is porous,its thermal resistance is smaller than that of the flannel fabric.Therefore,the temperature rises on skin surface and inside the body were relatively lower in 3D knitted skin,indicating the heat dissipation performance was better than the flannel skin.2)When the wind speed increased,the thermal resistance of the fabric decreased,and the heat dissipation of the robot also became better.3)A model was proposed to predict the temperature rise based on the thermal balance equation.There was no significant difference between the predicted temperature rise △T’i and the actual temperature rise △Ti of different skin at two wind speeds.When selecting materials for robot skin,in addition to considering the tactile of the material,the thickness,porosity,and thermal resistance should be taken into consideration.The 3D knitted fabric has been proved to be a good choice for robot skin.