Overview

In the Motivaion and Inspiration section, we explain about the motivation for the design of our 4-legged robot, RoboisE. The Design section contains an explanation of why we chose to use Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) to drive the motion of our robot and how we employed DEAs to move the 4 limbs of the RoboisE, which resembles a tortoise (see Figure 1), to bring about directed motion. 

In the Fabrication...

Shape Deposition Manufacturing (SDM) is a rapid prototyping process in which mechanisms are simultaneously fabricated and assembled through alternating steps of subtractive (milling) and additive (casting) manufacturing. One of the advantages of this process is that it is possible to embed items (such as sensors, motors, or structural reinforcements) into the mechanism you are building. Further information on SDM can be found here: [External link].

In this...

It is a long-standing interest of the robotics community to investigate actuators with performances matching or exceeding the ones of biological muscles. Currently, the majority of robots are still powered by stiff actuators, which do not exploit the unique soft properties of the muscle-tendon system. However, compliant/soft robotic features are promising for locomotion, manipulation or wearable robotics to reach expected performances and safety during interaction with humans or uncertain and dynamic environments. 

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Showcase features many of the devices and components that are submitted to the site through the Soft Robotic Design Competition. Students in the undergraduate and high school category, build, document, design and test their devices in order to publish their work to the Toolkit platform.

The concept of our project is to use soft robotics actuators without automation or electronics to create a product with advantages over traditional alternatives .In our case, the PneuNets Bending Actuators allow for a greater range of motion, and thus greater gripping ability than a traditional mechanical reacher grabber, like those used by the elderly and disabled. 

In the design section, we go over our concepts, prototypes, final design, and any problems with it, and potential improvements we could make. In fabrication, we show the bill of materials, the assembly process, and...