Our project will be to create a soft robotic arm and hand using some of the pneumatic components from Soft Robotics Toolkit. The hand will be part of a larger system mounted on a remote controlled vehicle. The goal is to have a fully functional robotic arm and hand capable of picking up and manipulating an object near the vehicle. The entire system will be controlled remotely, including an onboard air system capable of supplying the necessary air to utilize the pneumatic components.
In the Background, we discuss the motivation behind the project. The world of robotics has been expanding into the realm of soft materials, and many new potential applications have arisen as a result. One such application is their use in a work area that could be dangerous or unsafe for people. This is the main driving force behind the project.
In the Design, we discuss the approach we took in coming up with ideas to make the project a reality. The Fabrication section shows how we went about building the robot itself and the potential issues we encountered along the way. Finally, we show the testing of the individual subsystems and the final integrated system in Testing.
The team working on this project is a Senior Design team at Rochester Institute of Technology. We are made up of mechanical engineers Travis Emery, Shehan Jayasekera, and Tim Kremers, biomedical engineer Andres Ulloa, electrical engineer Lucas Prilenski, and team guide Art North. The customer aiding and funding the project is RIT professor Dr. Lamkin-Kennard.