EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

A retrofit sensing strategy for soft fluidic robots

Shibo Zou, Sergio Picella, Jelle Vries, Vera G. Kortman, Aimée Sakes and Johannes T. B. Overvelde ()
Additional contact information
Shibo Zou: AMOLF
Sergio Picella: AMOLF
Jelle Vries: AMOLF
Vera G. Kortman: Delft University of Technology
Aimée Sakes: Delft University of Technology
Johannes T. B. Overvelde: AMOLF

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Soft robots are intrinsically capable of adapting to different environments by changing their shape in response to interaction forces. However, sensory feedback is still required for higher level decisions. Most sensing technologies integrate separate sensing elements in soft actuators, which presents a considerable challenge for both the fabrication and robustness of soft robots. Here we present a versatile sensing strategy that can be retrofitted to existing soft fluidic devices without the need for design changes. We achieve this by measuring the fluidic input that is required to activate a soft actuator during interaction with the environment, and relating this input to its deformed state. We demonstrate the versatility of our strategy by tactile sensing of the size, shape, surface roughness and stiffness of objects. We furthermore retrofit sensing to a range of existing pneumatic soft actuators and grippers. Finally, we show the robustness of our fluidic sensing strategy in closed-loop control of a soft gripper for sorting, fruit picking and ripeness detection. We conclude that as long as the interaction of the actuator with the environment results in a shape change of the interval volume, soft fluidic actuators require no embedded sensors and design modifications to implement useful sensing.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44517-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-44517-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44517-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-44517-z