Key Laboratory of Urban Rail Transit Intelligent Operation and Maintenance Technology and Equipment of Zhejiang Province, Department of Robotics Engineering, College of Engineering, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, P. R. China.
Department of Engineering Mechanics, School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, P. R. China.
Soft Robot. 2023 Jun;10(3):660-672. doi: 10.1089/soro.2022.0002. Epub 2023 Jan 17.
Inchworm-inspired bionic soft crawling robot (SCR) composed of soft materials possesses preeminent active compliant deformation ability and has obvious advantages over traditional hard robots when moving in a confined space, which is up-and-coming candidate in robotic community. Nevertheless, there are rare investigations on dynamic modeling problems of the SCR allowing for its nonlinear deformation properties and frictional contact that affects its crawling performance. In view of this, within the theoretical framework of absolute nodal coordinate formulation, in consideration of material, geometry, and boundary nonlinearities, combining a multiple-point contact model with the Coulomb friction model, an effective and accurate nonlinear dynamic model for a bioinspired SCR with one single limb is proposed to elucidate its motion law. We implement an in-depth dynamic research and analysis on the SCR in terms of average velocity, stick-slip characteristic, gaits and successfully simulate its successive forward crawling locomotion meanwhile gaining dynamic response. The proposed theoretical dynamic model correctly captures the SCR' complex geometry configurations and nonlinear deformations, discloses its stick-slip dynamic behaviors and crawling locomotion mechanism, whose effectiveness and superiority are validated experimentally, which inspires a deep insight to motion analysis of other types of soft robots, and enlightens new ideas of their diversified architecture designs.
受尺蠖启发的软仿生蠕动机器人 (SCR) 由软材料组成，具有卓越的主动柔顺变形能力，在有限空间中移动时比传统硬机器人具有明显优势，是机器人领域的新兴候选者。然而，对于允许其非线性变形特性和摩擦接触影响其爬行性能的 SCR 的动态建模问题，几乎没有研究。针对这一点，在绝对节点坐标公式的理论框架内，考虑材料、几何和边界非线性，结合多点接触模型和库仑摩擦模型，提出了一种用于单肢仿生 SCR 的有效且准确的非线性动力学模型，以阐明其运动规律。我们对 SCR 进行了深入的动力学研究和分析，包括平均速度、粘滑特性、步态，并成功模拟了其连续向前爬行运动，同时获得了动态响应。所提出的理论动力学模型正确捕捉了 SCR 的复杂几何配置和非线性变形，揭示了其粘滑动力学行为和爬行运动机制，其有效性和优越性通过实验得到了验证，这为其他类型的软机器人的运动分析提供了深入的见解，并为它们的多样化结构设计提供了新的思路。
