Zhang Chuang, Zhang Yiwei, Wang Wenxue, Xi Ning, Liu Lianqing
State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
Institutes for Robotics and Intelligent Manufacturing, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110169, China.
Cyborg Bionic Syst. 2022 Jul 5;2022:9891380. doi: 10.34133/2022/9891380. eCollection 2022.
Biosyncretic robots, which are new nature-based robots in addition to bionic robots, that utilize biological materials to realize their core function, have been supposed to further promote the progress in robotics. Actuation as the main operation mechanism relates to the robotic overall performance. Therefore, biosyncretic robots actuated by living biological actuators have attracted increasing attention. However, innovative propelling modes and control methods are still necessary for the further development of controllable motion performance of biosyncretic robots. In this work, a muscle tissue-based biosyncretic swimmer with a manta ray-inspired propelling mode has been developed. What is more, to improve the stable controllability of the biosyncretic swimmer, a dynamic control method based on circularly distributed multiple electrodes (CDME) has been proposed. In this method, the direction of the electric field generated by the CDME could be real-time controlled to be parallel with the actuation tissue of the dynamic swimmer. Therefore, the instability of the tissue actuation induced by the dynamic included angle between the tissue axis and electric field direction could be eliminated. Finally, the biosyncretic robot has demonstrated stable, controllable, and effective swimming, by adjusting the electric stimulation pulse direction, amplitude, and frequency. This work may be beneficial for not only the development of biosyncretic robots but also other related studies including bionic design of soft robots and muscle tissue engineering.
生物融合机器人是除仿生机器人之外基于自然的新型机器人，它利用生物材料来实现其核心功能，有望进一步推动机器人技术的发展。驱动作为主要的运行机制，关系到机器人的整体性能。因此，由活体生物驱动器驱动的生物融合机器人受到了越来越多的关注。然而，创新的推进模式和控制方法对于生物融合机器人可控运动性能的进一步发展仍然是必要的。在这项工作中，开发了一种具有受蝠鲼启发的推进模式的基于肌肉组织的生物融合游泳机器人。此外，为了提高生物融合游泳机器人的稳定可控性，提出了一种基于圆形分布多电极（CDME）的动态控制方法。在这种方法中，CDME产生的电场方向可以实时控制为与动态游泳机器人的驱动组织平行。因此，可以消除由组织轴与电场方向之间的动态夹角引起的组织驱动不稳定性。最后，通过调整电刺激脉冲的方向、幅度和频率，生物融合机器人展示了稳定、可控且有效的游动。这项工作不仅可能有利于生物融合机器人的发展，也有利于包括软机器人的仿生设计和肌肉组织工程在内的其他相关研究。
