Engineering innovation: Designing soft robots for versatile purposes
In a groundbreaking development, researchers at the Singapore University of Technology and Design have announced a novel automated process for designing and fabricating customised soft robots. This innovative approach, published in the prestigious journal Advanced Materials Technologies, could pave the way for a new era in soft robotics.
The study, which does not explicitly list individual authors or participants in the provided search results, focuses on tailoring the fin composition of soft robots to survive harsh marine conditions. The team has utilised 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, for fabricating these soft robots, a technique that is slowly gaining traction in the field.
The researchers designed a swimming autonomous robot inspired by batoids, which is a type of ray. They compared three prototypes, each with a different fin design. The prototype with the optimised composite fins was 50% faster than its counterpart with the traditionally casted soft fin. Remarkably, it also turned roughly 30% faster compared to the soft fin and had the smallest turning radius among the three robots.
Dr Valdivia y Alvarado, who led the research, suggests that this workflow for fabricating optimised, multi-material soft robots can be universally applied to design other soft robots. He also proposes customising optical, thermal, electrical, and other physico-chemical properties for other potential applications.
Embedded 3D printing, which allows for the fabrication of soft robots made of multiple materials or composites, was particularly suited for this project. Dr Valdivia y Alvarado further suggests that tailoring the electrical conductivity of certain portions of the structure could be an objective for building a sensor.
Soft robots, with their wide applications in sensing, movement, object grasping and manipulation, have immense potential. This new method, published under the DOI 10.1002/admt.202100361, could open up a world of possibilities for soft robotics, making them more versatile, efficient, and resilient.
