Research On Key Technologies Of Multi-sports Model Worm-like Pneumatic Flexible Robot

Traditional robots are generally composed of a variety of rigid structure parts linked by motion pairs.Due to the poor adaptability of the rigid structure to the environment,it is difficult for the robot to work under complicated terrain.Benefit from soft material which can withstand large strains,soft robots have infinite degrees of freedom and strong deformation ability.They have an excellent flexibility to adapt to different kinds of irregular surroundings.So,soft robots have broad prospects of application in the fields of detection,exploration,rescue and healthcare.The existing soft robots have the problem that movement form is too single,deformation utilization is low,construction is complicated.This paper presents and develops a new pneumatic-driven earthworm-like soft robot.The robot is actuated by compressed air,characterized by compact structure and agile motion.They can crawl straight ahead,or change the direction.The main research work in this paper includes:1.By studying the motion mechanism of worms and imitating the crawling locomotion of an earthworm,the overall structure and the movement gait of the soft robot were studied and designed.2.The structure model of soft actuator was simplified reasonably,and influences of shape of chambers,thickness of main body,hardness of silicon rubber and size of fibers to the axial extension deformation of soft actuator were studied by the finite element analysis software.After optimization,The soft actuator would have greater deformability at lower air pressure.3.The prototype of pneumatic-driven earthworm-like soft robot was designed and manufactured.The extension and bending deformation of the optimized soft actuator were tested by experiments,and the results were analyzed and compared with the simulation results.It showed that the experimental results agree well with the simulation results in the same working conditions.The deformation response characteristics of soft actuator were tested by experiments,and results showed that The variation tendencies of inflating and deflating deformation response were the same at the effective range of deformation.The response time of inflation was longer than the exhaust deformation in the same air pressure.4.The control system of the soft robot was developed to realize real-time control to the robot.Based on the motion gait,the motion speed model of the soft robot was established.The motion performance of the soft robot,such as crawling forward,turning and climbing in different environments,were tested by experiments.It is found that the faster crawling velocity of the soft robot up to 7.75mm/s was achieved on the rubber plate when cilia crawling foots were 70°.When crawled in the smooth desktop,The soft robot could turn 20° in a period.The maximum climbing angle of the soft robot on rubber plate reaches 30°.