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A Quadruped Soft Robot for Climbing Parallel Rods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2020

Nana Zhu Open the ORCID record for Nana Zhu [Opens in a new window] ,
Hongbin Zang ,
Bing Liao Open the ORCID record for Bing Liao [Opens in a new window] ,
Huimin Qi ,
Zheng Yang ,
Mingyang Chen ,
Xin Lang  and
Yunjie Wang
Nana Zhu
Affiliation:
School of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Testing Technology for Manufacturing Process, Ministry of Education, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang621010, China
Hongbin Zang*
Affiliation:
School of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Testing Technology for Manufacturing Process, Ministry of Education, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang621010, China
Bing Liao
Affiliation:
School of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Testing Technology for Manufacturing Process, Ministry of Education, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang621010, China
Huimin Qi
Affiliation:
School of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Testing Technology for Manufacturing Process, Ministry of Education, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang621010, China
Zheng Yang
Affiliation:
School of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Testing Technology for Manufacturing Process, Ministry of Education, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang621010, China
Mingyang Chen
Affiliation:
School of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Testing Technology for Manufacturing Process, Ministry of Education, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang621010, China
Xin Lang
Affiliation:
School of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Testing Technology for Manufacturing Process, Ministry of Education, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang621010, China
Yunjie Wang
Affiliation:
School of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Testing Technology for Manufacturing Process, Ministry of Education, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang621010, China
*
*Corresponding author. E-mails: zanghongbin@swust.edu.cn, zanghongb@163.com
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Summary

Soft robots can perform effectively inspecting than rigid robots in some special environments such as nuclear pipelines and high-voltage cables. This article presents a versatile quadruped soft rod-climbing robot (SR-CR) that consists of four bending actuators and a telescopic actuator. The bending actuator is composed of flexible bellows with multiple folding air chambers, elastic telescopic layer (ETL), and strain-limiting layer (SLL). The telescopic actuator provides the energy for the robot to climb forward. The SR-CR is activated by a control strategy that alternates the body deformation and feet pneumatic clenched for stable climbing. The robot can climb rods at 90°, with the maximum speed of up to 2.33 mm/s (0.018 body length/s). At 0.83 HZ, the maximum moving speed of the robot in climbing horizontally parallel rods can reach 18.43 mm/s. In addition, the SR-CR can also achieve multiple impressive functions, including turning around a corner at a rate of 7 mm/s (0.054 body length/s), carrying a payload of 3.7 times its self-weight on horizontal rods at a speed of 9 mm/s (0.069 body length/s).

Keywords

Climbing robotBending actuatorTelescopic actuatorFlexible bellowsLocomotion
Type
Articles
Information
Robotica , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , April 2021 , pp. 686 - 698
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

**

These authors contributed equally to this work.

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