The robot can also open the door!
The robot is called Honeycomb Pneumatic Network Soft Arm, which resembles an elephant’s trunk, so it’s called “Elephant Trunk Arm”.
7 Chinese 90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot, can wipe the glass can also screw the bottle cap
Photo | “Elephant Trunk Arm” opens doors (Source: Interviewee)
In addition to opening doors, it can also open drawers.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot, which can wipe glass and screw bottle caps.
Figure | The “elephant trunk arm” opens drawers (Source: Interviewee)
In addition, it can also wipe the glass and screw the cap of the bottle, which is a proper household assistant.
Seven Chinese post-90s have developed the world’s first interactive soft robot that can wipe glass and unscrew bottle caps.
Photo | “Elephant trunk arm” wipes glass (Source: Interviewee)
Seven Chinese post-90s have developed the world’s first interactive soft robot that can wipe glass and twist bottle caps.
Figure | “Elephant trunk arm” opens bottle caps (Source: Interviewee)
The paper was also published in the top journal of robotics, IJRR (The International Journal of Robotics Research), led by Professor Xiaoping Chen of the University of Science and Technology of China, with a team of Hao Jiang, Zhangying Wang, Yusong Jin, Peizin Li, Yinghao Gan, Xiaotong Chen and Sen Lin.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot that can wipe glass and screw bottle caps
Figure | Several principal investigators (Source: Interviewee)
The soft robot arm is said to consist of three main parts: a honeycomb structure, an airbag network, and a drive system.
Zhan-Yin Wang told DeepTech, “The work demonstrates for the first time that a soft robotic arm can perform a variety of manipulation tasks in life.” Inspired by the elephant trunk, it can swing at will like an elephant trunk.
Seven Chinese 90-year-olds developed the world’s first interactive soft robot that can wipe glass and screw bottle caps
Photo | The “elephant trunk arm” swinging back and forth (Source: Interviewee)
Seven Chinese post-90s have developed the world’s first interactive soft robot that can wipe glass and twist bottle caps
Figure | The “elephant trunk arm” tracks a target point (source: interviewee)
In the study, they propose a “behavior-based” control approach inspired by the way humans accomplish tasks.
This “behavior” contains a movement trend, for example, the handwheel can be turned once by performing four actions: forward, downward, backward and upward.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot, which can wipe glass and screw bottle caps.
Figure | “Behavior” based control (Source: Interviewee)
Just as a mother teaches her baby to open a door by simply teaching him to “grab the doorknob, press down, and pull back,” the team’s proposed behavior-based control is a similar way of communicating with robots.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot that can wipe glass and screw bottle caps.
Figure | The “Elephant Trunk Arm” turns the steering wheel (Source: Interviewee)
To demonstrate its ability to perform fine tasks, the “elephant trunk” draws a straight line with the help of a ruler.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot that can wipe glass and screw bottle caps
Figure | “Elephant trunk arm” draws a straight line (Source: Interviewee)
This is actually similar to human hands, because it is also difficult for humans to draw a straight line with their bare hands, often with the help of a ruler, so the interaction ability of the “elephant trunk arm” is no less than that of humans in terms of individual functional performance.
Inspired by natural beehives
In the research, the team proposed a Honeycomb Pneumatic Networks structure, and based on this structure, they prepared a soft arm with the same flexibility and large load capacity as an elephant trunk, in which the load and weight of the arm has reached 1:1 (3Kg load, 3Kg self-weight).
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot, which can wipe glass and screw bottle caps.
Figure | Dynamic diagram of the honeycomb pneumatic network structure (Source: Interviewee)
The honeycomb structure was prepared using 3D printing technology, so the idea could be prototyped quickly. The material used was thermoplastic polyurethane, and after the 3D model was designed, it was sent to a 3D printing service manufacturer for printing. Currently, it costs about $3500 to print a 60cm “elephant trunk arm”, including the cost of materials and printing services.
The honeycomb pneumatic network structure, which uses compressed gas as an energy source, is a gas-driven soft robotic arm, with compressed gas supplied by an air pump.
In the study, they placed the airbag inside the honeycomb structure, and by controlling the air pressure inside the airbag, they could control the deformation of the honeycomb structure and thus the movement of the arm.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot that can wipe glass and screw bottle caps.
Figure | “Elephant trunk arm” opening drawers (source: interviewee)
Jiang Hao told DeepTech that most soft robots currently use soft, flexible materials such as silicone as their main body. These soft robots use compressed fluids and memory alloys to drive the deformation of the flexible material and produce the robot’s motion.
However, such robots are limited by the material properties, which makes it difficult to achieve large loads, and therefore there are some limitations for the design of robot arms.
In the proposed honeycomb pneumatic network structure, the folding and extension of the hexagonal shape of the honeycomb provides the deformation, i.e., the robot motion is generated by the folding-extension deformation of the structure, and the process is called structural deformation actuation.
In summary, the honeycomb structure has good bending and elongation capabilities, which give the soft arm good flexibility, and also has good torsional resistance, which is the basis for the arm’s load capacity.
The diagram below shows the basic structure and working principle of the honeycomb pneumatic network soft arm actuator. Two rows of honeycomb units are staggered, and two airbags are placed on the top and bottom of each unit, and the individual airbags are connected with silicone hoses to form a pneumatic network.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot, which can wipe glass and screw bottle caps.
Figure | The basic structure and working principle of the honeycomb pneumatic network soft body arm (Source: Interviewee)
When the airbag on one side inflates, the structure on that side will elongate under the action of the airbag, and the other side will deform less due to the restoring force of the structure, so the whole actuator will bend in the opposite direction.
In addition, if all airbags are inflated at the same time, the soft arm will elongate, and by controlling the combination of inflation of individual airbags, the soft arm can achieve multiple bending and elongation deformations. It is in this way that the honeycomb pneumatic network soft arm has good flexibility.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot, which can wipe glass and screw bottle caps.
Fig. | Point-to-point experiment of two motion controllers under external interaction (Source: Interviewee)
The airbag uses polyurethane nylon fabric, a composite material with good airtightness and pressure-bearing. The cost of making the airbag is about $1000 / per arm.
Among them, the use of mature nylon cloth processing process, airtightness and pressure can also be guaranteed. The proportional regulator, which is used to drive the arm movement, is a common pneumatic component in industry. These parts will be prepared separately, and then assembled, you can get the honeycomb pneumatic network soft arm.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot, which can wipe glass and screw bottle caps.
Figure | Honeycomb pneumatic network soft robot arm (Source: Interviewee)
As a single prototype, the overall cost of the arm is less than 5,000 yuan, and may be cheaper after improving the process.
Currently, the control system driving the arm is relatively costly, and the proportional regulator used to drive the arm’s motion is a common pneumatic component used in industry. In the study, the arm used 16 proportional regulators for control, costing about 30,000 yuan, the next step they will develop their own low-cost drive system to further reduce the total cost.
The future is expected to help people serve tea and pour water
Jiang Hao said this work is aimed at manipulation tasks in daily life, as shown in the paper, the soft robot arm can complete many daily tasks.
They hope that in the near future, the soft arm can play an important role in home service scenarios, helping people serve tea and pour water and clean up and clean up.
In medical care scenarios, robots often need to be in direct contact with patients. Due to the uncertainty in the real care scenario, the rigid robot arm cannot guarantee the safety when performing manipulation tasks in the care scenario, which also leads to its inability to be widely used in scenarios such as epidemic treatment.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot, which can wipe glass and screw bottle caps.
Figure | The “elephant trunk arm” can open bottle caps (Source: Interviewee)
The “elephant trunk arm” is inherently flexible and safe, providing a new way of thinking for robots in medical care applications. In addition, it can also be used in rescue, space and other scenarios.
The reason for the “elephant trunk arm” is that although robots have been around for more than half a century and have been widely used in industrial production, there are few robots that can be used in life, Jiang said.
To be used in life, an important requirement is that the robot system has the ability to handle the physical interaction between itself, and its everyday environment.
However, due to the high complexity and high uncertainty of living scenarios, these tasks remain a major challenge in robotics.
Soft robots are made of low Young’s modulus materials such as silicone, which are passive and pliable, and are safe for humans, the environment, and even the robot itself.
Based on this, he hopes to bring the “elephant trunk arm” to people’s lives, and practically help humans perform some daily tasks, which is also the original intention of the birth of this safe, efficient and low-cost soft robot arm.
Seven Chinese post-90s developed the world’s first interactive soft robot that can wipe glass and screw bottle caps
Figure | Left: using the same behavior to open drawers on different levels; right: can fight against manual interference and continue to perform the drawer-opening behavior (source: interviewees)
Speaking of the innovation of this research, Zhan-Yin Wang said, “A rigid arm generally has 6 to 7 free joints, and as long as the joint movement is controlled, the arm movement can be controlled. The soft arm is made of flexible material, it will be continuously deformed and will have infinite degrees of freedom, so it is difficult to be controlled.
And the control we propose this time is a great contribution to the field, and by doing so, we achieve motion control of the soft arm when it interacts with the environment, and that is what impressed the reviewers.”
He added, “The hardware design of the honeycomb is also one of our contributions, which is not only simple but also easy to prepare. Of course, this is not the only way to design the soft arm, and other designs have been proposed by scholars.
Talking about the impressive things in the experiment, Jiang Hao told DeepTech that he remembered one night when he and his junior brother Wang Zhanwing were working until 4:00 a.m. when the controller had a problem, receiving and sending instructions were not normal and the indicator light was flashing abnormally, and no problem was found after checking all the parts.
They once thought that aliens were trying to communicate with them, so they recorded a video and recorded the change pattern, intending to crack a wave, but later found that the 3-8 decoder was broken. They then stopped their experiment and took a break in the corridor next to the lab, looking up and seeing the fiery red sunset in the sky.
It is also reported that the robot also participated in a soft robot competition held by Harvard University in 2017, where there were about a hundred teams from around the world, and the robot finally won the second place.
The team will continue to draw inspiration from nature to carry out research on soft robots and expand the boundaries of robotics, so that robots can enter thousands of homes as soon as possible,” the team said.
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