TY - GEN
T1 - Design and development of a soft robot with crawling and grasping capabilities
AU - Calisti, Marcello
AU - Arienti, Andrea
AU - Renda, Federico
AU - Levy, Guy
AU - Hochner, Binyamin
AU - Mazzolai, Barbara
AU - Dario, Paolo
AU - Laschi, Cecilia
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - This paper describes the design and development of a robot with six soft limbs, with the dual capability of pushing-based locomotion and grasping by wrapping around objects. Specifically, a central platform lodges six silicone limbs, radially distributed, with cables embedded. A new mechanism-specific gait, invariant regarding the number of limbs, has been implemented. Functionally, some limbs provide stability while others push and pull the robot to locomote in the desired direction. Once the robot is close to a target, one limb is elected to wrap around the object and, thanks to the particular limb structure and the soft material, a friction-based grasping is achieved. The robot is inspired by the octopus and implements the key principles of locomotion in this animal, without coping the full body structure. For this reason it works in water, but it is not restricted to this environment. The experiments show the effectiveness of the original solution in locomotion and grasping.
AB - This paper describes the design and development of a robot with six soft limbs, with the dual capability of pushing-based locomotion and grasping by wrapping around objects. Specifically, a central platform lodges six silicone limbs, radially distributed, with cables embedded. A new mechanism-specific gait, invariant regarding the number of limbs, has been implemented. Functionally, some limbs provide stability while others push and pull the robot to locomote in the desired direction. Once the robot is close to a target, one limb is elected to wrap around the object and, thanks to the particular limb structure and the soft material, a friction-based grasping is achieved. The robot is inspired by the octopus and implements the key principles of locomotion in this animal, without coping the full body structure. For this reason it works in water, but it is not restricted to this environment. The experiments show the effectiveness of the original solution in locomotion and grasping.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84864470587&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224671
DO - 10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224671
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84864470587
SN - 9781467314039
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
SP - 4950
EP - 4955
BT - 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2012
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2012
Y2 - 14 May 2012 through 18 May 2012
ER -