Controlling a peristaltic robot inspired by inchworms

Abstract

This study presents an innovative approach in soft robotics, focusing on an inchworm-inspired robot designed for enhanced transport capabilities. We explore the impact of various parameters on the robot’s performance, including the number of activated sections, object size and material, supplied air pressure, and command execution rate. Through a series of controlled experiments, we demonstrate that the robot can achieve a maximum transportation speed of 8.54 mm/s and handle loads exceeding 100 g, significantly outperforming existing models in both speed and load capacity. Our findings provide valuable insights into the optimization of soft robotic design for improved efficiency and adaptability in transport tasks. This research not only contributes to the advancement of soft robotics but also opens new avenues for practical applications in areas requiring precise and efficient object manipulation. The study underscores the potential of biomimetic designs in robotics and sets a new benchmark for future developments in the field.

Keywords

McKibben artificial muscles / Bionics / Soft robotics / Soft actuator / Bio-inspired robotics

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

This work was partly suported by the Nagoya University Interdisciplinary Frontier Fellowship and the DII Collaborative Graduate Program for Accelerating Innovation in Future Electronics, Nagoya University, Japan.

References

[1] Faheem Ahmed, Muhammad Waqas, Bushra Jawed, et al. Decade of bio-inspired soft robots: A review, Smart Mater. Struct. 31 (7) (2022) 073002.

[2] Ryota Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Nabae, Koichi Suzumori, Active-bending six-bar tensegrity modular robot driven by thin artificial muscles, IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. (2023).

[3] Ryota Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Nabae, Gen Endo, Koichi Suzumori, Soft tenseg-rity robot driven by thin artificial muscles for the exploration of unknown spatial configurations, IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. 7 (2) (2022) 5349-5356.

[4] Yanhong Peng, Yusuke Sakai, Koki Nakagawa, Yuki Funabora, Tadayoshi Aoyama, Kenta Yokoe, Shinji Doki, Funabot-suit: A bio-inspired and McK-ibben muscle-actuated suit for natural kinesthetic perception, Biomim. Intell. Robotics 3 (4) (2023) 100127.

[5] Koichi Suzumori, Satoshi Endo, Takefumi Kanda, Naomi Kato, Hiroyoshi Suzuki, A bending pneumatic rubber actuator realizing soft-bodied manta swimming robot, in: Proceedings 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, 2007.

[6] Yuki Funabora, Flexible fabric actuator realizing 3D movements like hu-man body surface for wearable devices, in: 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS, IEEE, 2018.

[7] Mengyuan Yang, et al., Bioinspired phototropic mxene-reinforced soft tubular actuators for omnidirectional light-tracking and adaptive photo-voltaics, 32 (26) (2022) 2201884.

[8] Zebing Mao, Takeshi Iizuka, Shingo Maeda, Bidirectional electrohydrody-namic pump with high symmetrical performance and its application to a tube actuator, Sensors Actuators A 332 (2021) 113168.

[9] Ze-bing Mao, Yota Asai, Ardi Wiranata, De-qing Kong, Jia Man, Eccentric actuator driven by stacked electrohydrodynamic pumps, J. Zhejiang Univ. Sci. A 23 (4) (2022) 329-334.

[10] Xuehang Bai, Yanhong Peng, Dongze Li, Zhuochao Liu, Zebing Mao, Novel soft robotic finger model driven by electrohydrodynamic pump, J. Zhejiang Univ. Sci. A (2024) http://dx.doi.org/10.1631/jzus.A2300479 in press

[11] Yuki Funabora, Prototype of a fabric actuator with multiple thin artificial muscles for wearable assistive devices, in: 2017 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration, SII, IEEE, 2017.

[12] Yanhong Peng, Hiroki Yamaguchi, Yuki Funabora, Shinji Doki, Modeling fabric-type actuator using point clouds by deep learning, IEEE Access 10 (2022) 94363-94375.

[13] Zebing Mao, Yota Asai, Akimasa Yamanoi, Yumeta Seki, Ardi Wiranata, Ayato Minaminosono,Fluidic rolling robot using voltage-driven oscillating liquid, Smart Mater. Struct. 31 (10) (2022) 105006.

[14] Zebing Mao, Yanhong Peng, Chenlong Hu, Ruqi Ding, Yuhei Yamada, Shingo Maeda, Soft computing-based predictive modeling of flexi-ble electrohydrodynamic pumps, Biomim. Intell. Robotics 3 (3) (2023) 100114.

[15] Zebing Mao, Masaya Kuroki, Yuji Otsuka, Shingo Maeda,Contraction waves in self-oscillating polymer gels, Extreme Mech. Lett. 39 (2020) 100830.

[16] Yuzhe Wang, Pengpeng Zhang, Hui Huang, Jian Zhu, Bio-inspired transparent soft jellyfish robot, Soft Robotics 10 (3) (2023) 590-600.

[17] Zhan Tu, Fan Fei, Xinyan Deng, Untethered flight of an at-scale dual-motor hummingbird robot with bio-inspired decoupled wings, IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. 5 (3) (2020) 4194-4201.

[18] Deqing Kong, Yimeng Wang, Taihei Tsubata, Minoru Kuribayashi Kurosawa, Manabu Aoyagi, Atomization characteristics of 9.6 MHz directional surface acoustic wave for 1-micron spray system, Sensors Actuators A (2023) 114911.

[19] Deqing Kong, Takumi Hirata, Fei Li, Minoru Kuribayashi Kurosawa, Manabu Aoyagi, A novel miniature swimmer propelled by 36◦ Y-cut lithium niobate acoustic propulsion system, Sensors Actuators A (2023) 114837.

[20] Deqing Kong, Takumi Hirata, Yimeng Wang, Fei Li, Minoru Kuribayashi Kurosawa, Manabu Aoyagi, Acoustic underwater propulsion system based on ultrasonic disc PZT transducer, Sensors Actuators A (2023) 114502.

[21] Zebing Mao, Kazuhiro Yoshida, Joon-wan Kim, Developing O/O (oil-in-oil) droplet generators on a chip by using ECF (electro-conjugate fluid) micropumps, Sensors Actuators B 296 (2019) 126669.

[22] Zhifa Fang, Weimin Wang, Yanyu Cao, Qihang Li, Yulong Lin, et al., Reciprocating compressors intelligent fault diagnosis under multiple op-erating conditions based on adaptive variable scale morphological filter, Measurement 224 (2024) 113778.

[23] Jiawei Cao, Wenyu Liang, Yuzhe Wang, Heow Pueh Lee, Jian Zhu, Qinyuan Ren, Control of a soft inchworm robot with environment adaptation, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron. 67 (5) (2019) 3809-3818.

[24] Zheng Zhang, Ruyi Nan, Hongcheng Shen, Baisong Pan, Guang Zhang, Min Sun, Hao Chai, Shaofei Jiang, A high load capacity and efficient-transporting inchworm-like crawling robot with bistable structure and pneumatic networks actuator, Smart Mater. Struct. 32 (12) (2023) 125009.

[25] Sean Thomas, Paolo Germano, Thomas Martinez, Yves Perriard, An un-tethered mechanically-intelligent inchworm robot powered by a shape memory alloy oscillator, Sensors Actuators A 332 (2021) 113115.

[26] Yanhong Peng, Hiroyuki Nabae, Yuki Funabora, Koichi Suzumori, Peristaltic transporting device inspired by large intestine structure, Sensors Actuators A (2023) 114840.

[27] Shuichi Wakimoto, Koichi Suzumori, Jungo Takeda, Flexible artificial muscle by bundle of McKibben fiber actuators, in: 2011 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, AIM, IEEE, 2011.

[28] Shunichi Kurumaya, Hiroyuki Nabae, Gen Endo, Koichi Suzumori, Design of thin McKibben muscle and multifilament structure, Sensors Actuators A 261 (2017) 66-74.

[29] Ryan Wanamaker, Ian Grimm, Encyclopedia of gastroenterology, Gastroen-terology 127 (4) (2004) 1274-1275.

[30] Joseph Feher, Boston MA,8.3—Intestinal and colonic chemoreception and motility,in: Quantitative Human Physiology, second ed., Elsevier, Boston, MA, 2017, pp. 796-809.

[31] Y. Yekutieli, T. Flash, B. Hochner, Biomechanics: hydroskeletal, Encycl. Neurosci. 2 (2009) 189-200.

[32] Raymond H. Plaut, Mathematical model of inchworm locomotion, Int. J. Non-Linear Mech. 76 (2015) 56-63.

[33] Ahmad Ghanbari, Ali Rostami,Sayyed Mohammad Reza Sayyed Noorani, Mir Masoud Seyyed Fakhrabadi, Modeling and simulation of inchworm mode locomotion,in: Intelligent Robotics and Applications: First Inter-national Conference, ICIRA 2008, Wuhan, China,October 15-17, 2008, Proceedings, Part I 1, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2008.

[34] Muhammad Bilal Khan, Thirawat Chuthong, Cao Danh Do, Mathias Thor, Peter Billeschou, Jørgen Christian Larsen, Poramate Manoonpong, iCrawl: an inchworm-inspired crawling robot, IEEE Access 8 (2020) 200655-200668.

[35] Ken Saito, Daniel S. Contreras, Yudai Takeshiro, Yuki Okamoto, Satoshi Hirao, Yuya Nakata, Taisuke Tanaka, et al., Study on electrostatic inchworm motor device for a heterogeneous integrated microrobot system, Trans. Jpn. Inst. Electron. Packag. 12 (2019) E18-009.

[36] Jinwan Lim, Hyunjun Park, Jaemin An, Yeh-Sun Hong, Byungkyu Kim, Byung-Ju Yi, One pneumatic line based inchworm-like micro robot for half-inch pipe inspection, Mechatronics 18 (7) (2008) 315-322.

[37] Ceng Zhang, Junxin Chen, Jiatong Li, Yanhong Peng, Zebing Mao, Large language models for human-robot interaction: A review, Biomim. Intell. Robotics (2023) 100131.

[38] Zheng Zhang, Ruyi Nan, Hongcheng Shen, Baisong Pan, Guang Zhang, Min Sun, Hao Chai, Shaofei Jiang, A high load capacity and efficient-transporting inchworm-like crawling robot with bistable structure and pneumatic networks actuator, Smart Mater. Struct. 32 (12) (2023) 125009.

[39] Zhenyun Shi, Jie Pan, Jiawen Tian, Hao Huang, Yongrui Jiang, Song Zeng, An inchworm-inspired crawling robot, J. Bionic Eng. 16 (2019) 582-592.

[40] Shohei Ueno, Kenjiro Takemura, Shinichi Yokota, Kazuya Edamura, Micro inchworm robot using electro-conjugate fluid, Sensors Actuators A 216 (2014) 36-42.

[41] Dongwoo Lee, Sinbae Kim, Yong-Lae Park, Robert J. Wood, Design of centimeter-scale inchworm robots with bidirectional claws, in: 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, 2011.

[42] Byungkyu Kim, Sunghak Lee, Jong Hyeon Park, Jong-Oh Park, Inchworm-like microrobot for capsule endoscope, in: 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, IEEE, 2004.