Pellicular Morphing Surfaces for Soft Robots
Published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. Presented at ICRA, 2019
Recommended citation: Digumarti KM, Conn AT, Rossiter J. Pellicular Morphing Surfaces for Soft Robots. In 2018 IEEE Robotics and Automation letters 2019 Volume 4 Issue 3 July 2019 (pp. 2304-2309). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2019.2901981
Abstract
Soft structures in nature endow organisms across scales with the ability to drastically deform their bodies and exhibit complex behaviors while overcoming challenges in their environments. Inspired by microstructures found in the cell membranes of the Euglena family of microorganisms, which exhibit giant changes in shape during their characteristic euglenoid movement, this letter presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of bio-inspired deforming surfaces. The result is a surface of interconnected strips, that deforms in 2-D and 3-D due to simple shear between adjacent members. We fabricate flexible polymeric strips and demonstrate three different shapes arising out of the same actuation by imposing various constraints. We characterize the strips in terms of the force required to separate them and show that the bio-inspired cross section of these strips enables them to hold up to 8N of force with a meagre 0.5mm of material thickness, while still being flexible to deform. Further, the design of a soft robot module, with an actively deformable surface has been presented, which replicates the mechanism of shape change seen in the Euglena. This letter shows the potential for this new form of shape morphing surface in realizing bio-mimetic soft robots exhibiting large changes in shape.
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