Research On A Small Silkworm-like Robot With Flexible Abdominal Segments

Peristaltic robots are a type of bionic robots.Due to their special motion patterns and structures,they have great adaptability in various environments and a wide range of applications.In this paper,combined traditional peristaltic robots with software robots,adding flexible materials to the joints with rigid frames retained,a small silkworm robot with rigid-flexible structure had been developed.This paper analyzed the physiological structure and silkworm motion.The flexible design was based on the existing small silkworm-like robots.A flexible abdominal driver used silicon rubber as flexible material.The structural parameters of the driver was designed by driver deformation characteristics analyzed by ANSYS to meet the working requirements.A silkworm robot kinematic model where flexible abdominal joint was simplified into a linkage system was established.The gait of peristaltic and turning motion were planned,and control function of joint rotation were obtained.Control function was optimized by using multi-objective optimization algorithm.The simulation model of peristaltic motion and turning motion was established through ADAMS,and the control function was simulated and verified.The optimized control function can effectively improve the robot's peristaltic efficiency.The robot's flexible abdominal joint driver was simulated by ADAMS and MATLAB/Simulink jointly.The robot's turning joint posture was tracked and controlled by the PID algorithm,which improved the robot motion accuracy.The control system used central controller as core to control the actions of steering gear and flexible abdominal joint driver.The information of MPU6050 and ultrasonic sensors was collected,and the computer was communicated through NRF24L01.The software of the control system was divided into two parts: the controller send the collected sensor information and received control commands between the computer,and controlled the steering gear and flexible abdominal joint driver through PWM;The computer was developed by QT with C ++language to achieve functions of robot control,wireless communication,obstacle avoidance detection,tilt detection and video surveillance.The small silkworm-like robot prototype with a flexible abdominal section was completed by 3D printing technology and mold technology.The motion control model of robot squirming and turning was verified by prototype test.The influence of various parameters on the robot's motion was explored.The traveling efficiency of the small silkworm-like robot had been improved by the optimized design.