TY - JOUR

T1 - SPONGE: Open-Source Designs of Modular Articulated Soft Robots

AU - Habich, Tim Lukas

AU - Haack, Jonas

AU - Belhadj, Mehdi

AU - Lehmann, Dustin

AU - Seel, Thomas

AU - Schappler, Moritz

PY - 2024/4/15

Y1 - 2024/4/15

N2 - Soft-robot designs are manifold, but only a few are publicly available. Often, these are only briefly described in their publications. This complicates reproduction, and hinders the reproducibility and comparability of research results. If the designs were uniform and open source, validating researched methods on real benchmark systems would be possible. To address this, we present two variants of a soft pneumatic robot with antagonistic bellows as open source. Starting from a semi-modular design with multiple cables and tubes routed through the robot body, the transition to a fully modular robot with integrated microvalves and serial communication is highlighted. Modularity in terms of stackability, actuation, and communication is achieved, which is the crucial requirement for building soft robots with many degrees of freedom and high dexterity for real-world tasks. Both systems are compared regarding their respective advantages and disadvantages. The robots' functionality is demonstrated in experiments on airtightness, gravitational influence, position control with mean tracking errors of <3 deg, and long-term operation of cast and printed bellows.

AB - Soft-robot designs are manifold, but only a few are publicly available. Often, these are only briefly described in their publications. This complicates reproduction, and hinders the reproducibility and comparability of research results. If the designs were uniform and open source, validating researched methods on real benchmark systems would be possible. To address this, we present two variants of a soft pneumatic robot with antagonistic bellows as open source. Starting from a semi-modular design with multiple cables and tubes routed through the robot body, the transition to a fully modular robot with integrated microvalves and serial communication is highlighted. Modularity in terms of stackability, actuation, and communication is achieved, which is the crucial requirement for building soft robots with many degrees of freedom and high dexterity for real-world tasks. Both systems are compared regarding their respective advantages and disadvantages. The robots' functionality is demonstrated in experiments on airtightness, gravitational influence, position control with mean tracking errors of <3 deg, and long-term operation of cast and printed bellows.

KW - Actuators

KW - Bellows

KW - Cables

KW - Electron tubes

KW - Hydraulic/Pneumatic Actuators

KW - Pneumatic systems

KW - Robots

KW - Soft Robot Materials and Design

KW - Soft robotics

KW - Soft Sensors and Actuators

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85190726145&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.48550/arXiv.2404.10734

DO - 10.48550/arXiv.2404.10734

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85190726145

VL - 9

SP - 1

EP - 8

JO - IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

JF - IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

SN - 2377-3766

IS - 6

ER -