Soft Scalable Crawling Robots Enabled by Programmable Origami and Electrostatic Adhesion

Qiqiang Hu; Junyang Li; Erbao Dong; Dong Sun

doi:10.1109/LRA.2023.3251181

Soft Scalable Crawling Robots Enabled by Programmable Origami and Electrostatic Adhesion

Qiqiang Hu
, Junyang Li
, Erbao Dong
, Dong Sun^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Biomedical Engineering

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

39 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This letter reports a soft and scalable crawling robot that can actively adapt to flat planes and tubes without manual adjustment. The robot is mainly composed of a programmable origami body and two flexible electrostatic pads with a measured thickness of around 34 mu m. The pad generates considerable adhesion on flat, convex, and concave substrates due to low deformation resistance. Origami bodies with different cross-sectional shapes are also fabricated and studied. Artificial muscles (e.g., shape memory alloy and vacuum actuation) are incorporated into the origami bodies to construct soft crawling robots at different scales. These robots can achieve multimodal movements, such as dual-mode crawling, turning, and climbing on flat planes, and move inside and outside a tube. In addition, the robot can be combined with a lightweight soft origami gripper to demonstrate the ability to manipulate objects along the way. © 2023 IEEE

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	2365-2372
Journal	IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Volume	8
Issue number	4
Online published	1 Mar 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2023.3251181
Publication status	Published - Apr 2023

Funding

This work was supported in part by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Special Administration Region, China under Grants C1134-20G and 11211421, in part by the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant U20A20194, and in part by Shenzhen Science and Technology Project, China under Grant SGDX2020110309300502.

Research Keywords

Robots
Electrostatics
Electron tubes
Adhesives
Shape
Actuators
Electrodes
Soft robotics
origami robots
climbing robots
RESILIENT
INSECT

RGC Funding Information

RGC-funded

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10.1109/LRA.2023.3251181

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title = "Soft Scalable Crawling Robots Enabled by Programmable Origami and Electrostatic Adhesion",

abstract = "This letter reports a soft and scalable crawling robot that can actively adapt to flat planes and tubes without manual adjustment. The robot is mainly composed of a programmable origami body and two flexible electrostatic pads with a measured thickness of around 34 mu m. The pad generates considerable adhesion on flat, convex, and concave substrates due to low deformation resistance. Origami bodies with different cross-sectional shapes are also fabricated and studied. Artificial muscles (e.g., shape memory alloy and vacuum actuation) are incorporated into the origami bodies to construct soft crawling robots at different scales. These robots can achieve multimodal movements, such as dual-mode crawling, turning, and climbing on flat planes, and move inside and outside a tube. In addition, the robot can be combined with a lightweight soft origami gripper to demonstrate the ability to manipulate objects along the way. {\textcopyright} 2023 IEEE",

keywords = "Robots, Electrostatics, Electron tubes, Adhesives, Shape, Actuators, Electrodes, Soft robotics, origami robots, climbing robots, RESILIENT, INSECT",

author = "Qiqiang Hu and Junyang Li and Erbao Dong and Dong Sun",

year = "2023",

month = apr,

doi = "10.1109/LRA.2023.3251181",

language = "English",

volume = "8",

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journal = "IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters",

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AU - Hu, Qiqiang

AU - Li, Junyang

AU - Dong, Erbao

AU - Sun, Dong

PY - 2023/4

Y1 - 2023/4

N2 - This letter reports a soft and scalable crawling robot that can actively adapt to flat planes and tubes without manual adjustment. The robot is mainly composed of a programmable origami body and two flexible electrostatic pads with a measured thickness of around 34 mu m. The pad generates considerable adhesion on flat, convex, and concave substrates due to low deformation resistance. Origami bodies with different cross-sectional shapes are also fabricated and studied. Artificial muscles (e.g., shape memory alloy and vacuum actuation) are incorporated into the origami bodies to construct soft crawling robots at different scales. These robots can achieve multimodal movements, such as dual-mode crawling, turning, and climbing on flat planes, and move inside and outside a tube. In addition, the robot can be combined with a lightweight soft origami gripper to demonstrate the ability to manipulate objects along the way. © 2023 IEEE

AB - This letter reports a soft and scalable crawling robot that can actively adapt to flat planes and tubes without manual adjustment. The robot is mainly composed of a programmable origami body and two flexible electrostatic pads with a measured thickness of around 34 mu m. The pad generates considerable adhesion on flat, convex, and concave substrates due to low deformation resistance. Origami bodies with different cross-sectional shapes are also fabricated and studied. Artificial muscles (e.g., shape memory alloy and vacuum actuation) are incorporated into the origami bodies to construct soft crawling robots at different scales. These robots can achieve multimodal movements, such as dual-mode crawling, turning, and climbing on flat planes, and move inside and outside a tube. In addition, the robot can be combined with a lightweight soft origami gripper to demonstrate the ability to manipulate objects along the way. © 2023 IEEE

KW - Robots

KW - Electrostatics

KW - Electron tubes

KW - Adhesives

KW - Shape

KW - Actuators

KW - Electrodes

KW - Soft robotics

KW - origami robots

KW - climbing robots

KW - RESILIENT

KW - INSECT

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DO - 10.1109/LRA.2023.3251181

M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal

SN - 2377-3766

VL - 8

SP - 2365

EP - 2372

JO - IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

JF - IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

IS - 4

ER -

Soft Scalable Crawling Robots Enabled by Programmable Origami and Electrostatic Adhesion

Abstract

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GRF: High-throughput Robotic Microinjection System and Its Application in Constructing Gene-edited Macrophages with Enhanced Tumor-killing Ability

CRF: A Novel Vaccination Strategy: Using a Microrobot Platform for DNA Vaccine Delivery and Antigen Presentation

Cite this

Soft Scalable Crawling Robots Enabled by Programmable Origami and Electrostatic Adhesion

Abstract

Funding

Research Keywords

RGC Funding Information

Access Output

Other Access Options

Permanent Link

Other Files and Links

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Projects

GRF: High-throughput Robotic Microinjection System and Its Application in Constructing Gene-edited Macrophages with Enhanced Tumor-killing Ability

CRF: A Novel Vaccination Strategy: Using a Microrobot Platform for DNA Vaccine Delivery and Antigen Presentation

Cite this