Reconfigurable Robotics Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, 1015, Switzerland.
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2021 Oct;8(20):e2100924. doi: 10.1002/advs.202100924. Epub 2021 Aug 29.
The latest efforts in digital fluidic circuits' research aim at being electronics-free, light-weight, and compliant controllers for soft robots; however, challenges arise to adjust the fluidic circuit's digital logic operations. Currently there is no other way to modulate the amplitude or frequency but to structurally redesign the entire fluidic circuitry. This is mainly because there is currently no method to create an analog circuit-like behavior in the digital fluidic circuits using conventional digitized fluidic gates. In this work, a new approach is presented to designing a circuit with digitized fluidic gates that is comparable to an analog circuit capable of actively tuning the circuit's fluidic characteristics, such as pressure gain, amplitude of output, and time response. For the first time, a pressure-controlled oscillator is modeled, designed, and prototyped that not only controls the fluidic oscillation, but also modulates its frequency using only a single, quasi-static pressure input. It can also demonstrate the circuit's performance for the control of a soft robotic system by actively modulating the motion of a soft earthworm robot up to twice of crawling speeds. This work has distinct contributions to designing and building intelligent pneumatic controllers toward truly comprehensive soft robotic systems.
最新的数字流体制研究旨在为软机器人提供无电子产品、重量轻且顺应性好的控制器；然而，在调整流体电路的数字逻辑操作方面存在挑战。目前，除了对整个流体电路进行结构重新设计之外，没有其他方法可以调节流体电路的数字逻辑操作。这主要是因为目前没有办法在使用传统数字化流体门的数字流体制中创建类似于模拟电路的行为。在这项工作中，提出了一种新的方法来设计具有数字化流体门的电路，该电路类似于能够主动调整电路的流体特性（如压力增益、输出幅度和时间响应）的模拟电路。这是第一次，模型、设计和原型制作了一个压力控制振荡器，它不仅可以控制流体的振荡，而且仅使用单个准静态压力输入就可以调节其频率。它还可以通过主动调节软蚯蚓机器人的运动来展示电路在软机器人系统控制中的性能，使其爬行速度提高一倍。这项工作在设计和构建真正全面的软机器人系统的智能气动控制器方面具有独特的贡献。
