Toward Self-Growing Soft Robots Inspired by Plant Roots and Based on Additive Manufacturing Technologies
| Autor: | Barbara Mazzolai, Ali Sadeghi, Alessio Mondini |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
0209 industrial biotechnology
Engineering Plant roots business.industry Manufacturing process Biophysics soft robots 3D printing Mechanical engineering 02 engineering and technology Original Articles 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology Curvature 020901 industrial engineering & automation Artificial Intelligence Control and Systems Engineering growing robots plant-inspired robots Robot 0210 nano-technology business additive manufacturing |
| Zdroj: | Soft Robotics |
| ISSN: | 2169-5172 |
| Popis: | In this article, we present a novel class of robots that are able to move by growing and building their own structure. In particular, taking inspiration by the growing abilities of plant roots, we designed and developed a plant root-like robot that creates its body through an additive manufacturing process. Each robotic root includes a tubular body, a growing head, and a sensorized tip that commands the robot behaviors. The growing head is a customized three-dimensional (3D) printer-like system that builds the tubular body of the root in the format of circular layers by fusing and depositing a thermoplastic material (i.e., polylactic acid [PLA] filament) at the tip level, thus obtaining movement by growing. A differential deposition of the material can create an asymmetry that results in curvature of the built structure, providing the possibility of root bending to follow or escape from a stimulus or to reach a desired point in space. Taking advantage of these characteristics, the robotic roots are able to move inside a medium by growing their body. In this article, we describe the design of the growing robot together with the modeling of the deposition process and the description of the implemented growing movement strategy. Experiments were performed in air and in an artificial medium to verify the functionalities and to evaluate the robot performance. The results showed that the robotic root, with a diameter of 50 mm, grows with a speed of up to 4 mm/min, overcoming medium pressure of up to 37 kPa (i.e., it is able to lift up to 6 kg) and bending with a minimum radius of 100 mm. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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