微型软体机器人可爬行通过4毫米窄缝，速度达3.3毫米/秒。
Bi-stable thin soft robot for in-plane locomotion in narrow space
- 用双稳态结构增强介电弹性体驱动器，提升位移与输出力。
- 机器人在4毫米窄缝中以3.3毫米/秒速度爬行，达2.78倍体厚/秒。
- 适合微空间探测，可在纸张、亚克力等表面爬行或攀附。
介电弹性体驱动器（DEA）因其柔性骨架和微型化特性，广泛应用于软体机器人领域，特别适合狭窄空间检测。本文提出一种新型低剖面（1.1毫米）、轻量化（1.8克）的双稳态平面介电弹性体驱动器（Bi-DEA），其通过将介电弹性体支撑于双稳态机构上实现。该结构相比无双稳态结构的平面驱动器（I-DEA）显著提升位移和输出力。将该驱动器用于薄型软体机器人，采用三个静电粘附垫（EA-Pads）作为锚定元件，使其具备在各种表面（如纸张、亚克力）上爬行与攀爬的能力。理论模型构建了双稳态机构与驱动器的耦合关系，实验验证了机制带来的性能增强。该软体机器人成功实现通过4毫米狭窄间隙，最大速度达3.3毫米/秒（相当于0.07倍体长/秒，2.78倍体厚/秒）。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), also recognized as artificial muscle, have been widely developed for the soft locomotion robot. With the complaint skeleton and miniaturized dimension, they are well suited for the narrow space inspection. In this work, we propose a novel low profile (1.1mm) and lightweight (1.8g) bi-stable in-plane DEA (Bi-DEA) constructed by supporting a dielectric elastomer onto a flat bi-stable mechanism. It has an amplified displacement and output force compared with the in-plane DEA (I-DEA) without the bi-stable mechanism. Then, the Bi-DEA is applied to a thin soft robot, using three electrostatic adhesive pads (EA-Pads) as anchoring elements. This robot is capable of crawling and climbing to access millimetre-scale narrow gaps. A theoretical model of the bi-stable mechanism and the DEA are presented. The enhanced performance of the Bi-DEA induced by the mechanism is experimentally validated. EA-Pad provides the adhesion between the actuator and the locomotion substrate, allowing crawling and climbing on various surfaces, i.e., paper and acrylic. The thin soft robot has been demonstrated to be capable of crawling through a 4mm narrow gap with a speed up to 3.3mm/s (0.07 body length per second and 2.78 body thickness per second).
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