Design and Manufacturing of a Simple Soft Caterpillar Robot

Petar Curkovic () and Denis Milvic
Additional contact information
Petar Curkovic: University of Zagreb Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, Zagreb, Croatia
Denis Milvic: University of Zagreb Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, Zagreb, Croatia

Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal, 2024, vol. 22, issue 5, 633-645

Abstract: Soft robots are increasingly gaining attention not only within the scientific community, but also in various real-world applications, due to their inherent compliance, ease of manufacture and favourable mechanical properties. These robots can manipulate a wide range of objects without the need for precise feedback on position, orientation, force, and torque. Their low elastic moduli make them inherently safe. However, although the field of soft robotics has been well established now, there is still a significantly smaller number of successfully realized applications in the domain of mobile soft robotics. This article presents a detailed development process of a tethered mobile caterpillar-like soft robot. A single part mould is designed and used to cast the silicone body of the robot with integrated four Shape Memory Alloy tendons, allowing generation of the inching motion pattern. The detailed analysis of the manufacturing process for robot fabrication, with the necessary hardware and software used for robot control is presented. Experimental verification shows usability of presented approach, but also reveals limitations mainly due to insufficient cooling of the Shape Memory Alloy tendons which limits the number of cycles per time.

Keywords: soft robot; shape memory alloy; biomimetic robot; soft robot manufacturing process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L69 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.indecs.eu/2024/indecs2024-pp633-645.pdf (application/pdf)

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:zna:indecs:v:22:y:2024:i:5:p:633-645

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal from Croatian Interdisciplinary Society Provider Homepage: http://indecs.eu
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Josip Stepanic ().