Olsen Zakai J, Kim Kwang J
Active Materials and Smart Living (AMSL) Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, United States.
Front Robot AI. 2019 Nov 1;6:112. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2019.00112. eCollection 2019.
Smart materials and soft robotics have been seen to be particularly well-suited for developing biomimetic devices and are active fields of research. In this study, the design and modeling of a new biomimetic soft robot is described. Initial work was made in the modeling of a biomimetic robot based on the locomotion and kinematics of jellyfish. Modifications were made to the governing equations for jellyfish locomotion that accounted for geometric differences between biology and the robotic design. In particular, the capability of the model to account for the mass and geometry of the robot design has been added for better flexibility in the model setup. A simple geometrically defined model is developed and used to show the feasibility of a proposed biomimetic robot under a prescribed geometric deformation to the robot structure. A more robust mechanics model is then developed which uses linear beam theory is coupled to an equivalent circuit model to simulate actuation of the robot with ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) actuators. The mechanics model of the soft robot is compared to that of the geometric model as well as biological jellyfish swimming to highlight its improved efficiency. The design models are characterized against a biological jellyfish model in terms of propulsive efficiency. Using the mechanics model, the locomotive energetics as modeled in literature on biological jellyfish are explored. Locomotive efficiency and cost as a function of swimming cycles are examined for various swimming modes developed, followed by an analysis of the initial transient and steady-state swimming velocities. Applications for fluid pumping or thrust vectoring utilizing the same basic robot design are also proposed. The new design shows a clear advantage over its purely biological counterpart for a soft-robot, with the newly proposed biomimetic swimming mode offering enhanced swimming efficiency and steady-state velocities for a given size and volume exchange.
智能材料和软体机器人被认为特别适合用于开发仿生设备，并且是活跃的研究领域。在本研究中，描述了一种新型仿生软体机器人的设计和建模。最初的工作是基于水母的运动和运动学对仿生机器人进行建模。对水母运动的控制方程进行了修改，以考虑生物学与机器人设计之间的几何差异。特别是，模型增加了考虑机器人设计的质量和几何形状的能力，以便在模型设置中具有更好的灵活性。开发了一个简单的几何定义模型，并用于展示所提出的仿生机器人在规定的机器人结构几何变形下的可行性。然后开发了一个更强大的力学模型，该模型使用线性梁理论并与等效电路模型耦合，以模拟使用离子聚合物-金属复合材料（IPMC）致动器的机器人的驱动。将软体机器人的力学模型与几何模型以及生物水母的游动进行比较，以突出其提高的效率。根据推进效率将设计模型与生物水母模型进行对比。使用力学模型，探索了文献中关于生物水母建模的运动能量学。研究了各种开发的游动模式下作为游动周期函数的运动效率和成本，随后分析了初始瞬态和稳态游动速度。还提出了利用相同基本机器人设计进行流体泵送或推力矢量控制的应用。对于软体机器人来说，新设计相对于其纯粹的生物对应物具有明显优势，新提出的仿生游动模式在给定的尺寸和体积交换下提供了更高的游动效率和稳态速度。
