Soft robotics, Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Full story: "Rubbery robot battles flames, snow and gets run over"

by Sandrine Ceurstemont
September 5, 2014

It may look like a softy, but this robot is a rugged survivor that can survive fire, ice and getting squashed by a car

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Engineers at Harvard’s School for Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have developed the world’s first untethered soft robot – and demonstrated that the quadruped, which can literally stand up and walk away from its designers, can walk through snow, fire and even be run over by a car. The hope is that such robots might one day serve as a search and rescue tool following disasters.

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"Cutting the cord on soft robots
From Harvard engineers, a machine that can walk through flames"

by Peter Reuell
September 10, 2014

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Harvard researchers have created a soft robot that uses an "explosive actuator" to propel itself. Learn more:
"This Soft Robot Uses Explosions to Jump"

by Evan Ackerman
September 16, 2014

This video is part of the paper "An Untethered Jumping Soft Robot," by Michael T. Tolley, Robert F. Shepherd, Michael Karpelson, Nicholas W. Bartlett, Kevin C. Galloway, Michael Wehner, Rui Nunes, George M. Whitesides, and Robert J. Wood, from Harvard University, presented at IROS 2014 in Chicago.

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Selecting which of its three pneumatic legs fire, this gizmo can point itself in the direction it wants to go
Full story: "We have lift off! 3D-printed robot jumps six times its height"

by Aviva Rutkin
July 9, 2015

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SEAS researchers have built one of the first 3-D printed, soft robots that moves autonomously. The design offers a new solution to an engineering challenge that has plagued soft robotics for years: the integration of rigid and soft materials. This design combines the autonomy and speed of a rigid robot with the adaptability and resiliency of a soft robot and, because of 3-D printing, is relatively cheap and fast.

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Using a multi-material 3D printer for manufacturing allowed Wyss Institute researchers to fabricate the jumping robot in one uninterrupted job, seamlessly transitioning from rigid core components to a soft exterior in a single print session. It's first ever robot to be 3D printed with layers of material gradients, making it extremely durable and giving the jumping robot a long lifespan of use, and could lead to a new class of functionally-graded soft robots.

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First of its kind robot is inspired by nature, capable of multiple jumps
Engineers at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego, have created the first robot with a 3D-printed body that transitions from a rigid core to a soft exterior. The robot is capable of more than 30 untethered jumps and is powered by a mix of butane and oxygen. Researchers describe the robot’s design, manufacturing and testing in the July 10 issue of Science magazine.

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Soft robotics is a rapidly developing field that is changing the way we perceive automated systems. Soft robots deform​ ​continuously along their bodies as opposed to at discrete joints like traditional rigid robots. In this work we demonstrated the use of multi-material 3D printing to fabricate ​a ​four-legged walking robot with bellowed soft legs. The ​robot ​is powered by pressurized air and is able to navigate a variety of terrain. This design is a step towards the development of a mobile soft system for applications including monitoring in hazardous environments and search-and-rescue operations.

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Submersible robots are finding ever-increasing uses in search and rescue, environmental monitoring, and defense applications. Artificial muscles made out of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) provide an attractive choice for driving submersible robotics based on their high energy density, light weight, and efficiency. One challenge for most DEAs is that that they require conductive electrodes that are made out of materials that are challenging to pattern and/or add stiffness to the devices. Our solution is to use water as our conductive electrodes, which simplifies the design of our artificial muscles compared to alternative designs, allowing us to make lightweight, environmentally friendly, compliant electrodes for soft, underwater robots.

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Current virtual reality technologies rely heavily on visual and audio feedback as a form of sensory feedback. Most existing wearable haptic devices use vibrating motors, which are unable to provide force feedback, or rigid linkage devices which are bulky and inflexible. We address this issue with a wearable soft robotic glove capable of safely applying forces to the fingers of the user. The glove design includes a soft exoskeleton actuated by Mckibben muscles that are controlled using a custom fluidic control board. The result is a haptic glove that is compliant, compact and unintimidating. We demonstrated its application with a virtual reality environment that simulates playing the piano and received positive preliminary feedback from users. This glove represents a step toward developing natural 3D user interfaces by replacing the existing wand controllers.

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This is the video submission for the paper:

Custom Soft Robotic Gripper Sensor Skins for Haptic Object Visualization

by Benjamin Shih, Dylan Drotman, Caleb Christianson, Zhaoyuan Huo, Ruffin White, Henrik I. Christensen, and Michael T. Tolley

From the University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA, USA.

Presented at the 2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2017) in Vancouver, Canada, September 24–28, 2017.

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Collaborations between bioengineers, material scientists, medical practitioners, and computer scientists have opened up entirely new avenues for innovation in human-assistive robotics, surgical robotics, search and rescue, and more.

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An innovative, eel-like robot developed by engineers and marine biologists at the University of California can swim silently in salt water without an electric motor. Instead, the robot uses artificial muscles filled with water to propel itself. The foot-long robot, which is connected to an electronics board that remains on the surface, is also virtually transparent.
The team, which includes researchers from UC San Diego and UC Berkeley, details their work in the April 25 issue of Science Robotics.

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Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have shown how a multi-layered structure can allow robots to create and eliminate joints on command. The structure allows robots to rapidly change their stiffness, damping, and dynamics.

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The compliance and conformability of soft robots provide inherent advantages when working around delicate objects or in unstructured environments. However, rapid locomotion in soft robotics is challenging due to the slow propagation of motion in compliant structures, particularly underwater. Cephalopods overcome this challenge using jet propulsion and the added mass effect to achieve rapid, efficient propulsion underwater without a skeleton. Taking inspiration from cephalopods, here we present an underwater robot with a compliant body that can achieve repeatable jet propulsion by changing its internal volume and cross-sectional area to take advantage of jet propulsion as well as the added mass effect. The robot achieves a maximum average thrust of 0.19 N and maximum average and peak swimming speeds of 18.4 cm s−1 (0.54 body lengths/s) and 32.1 cm s−1 (0.94 BL/s), respectively. We also demonstrate the use of an onboard camera as a sensor for ocean discovery and environmental monitoring applications.

Related Publication: Christianson C., Cui Y., Ishida M., Bi X., Zhu Q., Pawlak G., Tolley M. T., (2020), "Cephalopod-Inspired Robot Capable of Cyclic Jet Propulsion Through Shape Change", Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, 16, 016014.
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-3190/abbc72

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