Torque Responsive Metamaterials Enable High Payload Soft Robot Arms

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Good, Ian, Balaji, Srivatsan, Oh, David, Thomas, Sawyer, Lipton, Jeffrey I.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Good, Ian
Balaji, Srivatsan
Oh, David
Thomas, Sawyer
Lipton, Jeffrey I.
author_facet Good, Ian
Balaji, Srivatsan
Oh, David
Thomas, Sawyer
Lipton, Jeffrey I.
contents Soft robots have struggled to support large forces and moments while also supporting their own weight against gravity. This limits their ability to reach certain configurations necessary for tasks such as inspection and pushing objects up. We have overcome this limitation by creating an electrically driven metamaterial soft arm using handed shearing auxetics (HSA) and bendable extendable torque resistant (BETR) shafts. These use the large force and torque capacity of HSAs and the nestable torque transmission of BETRs to create a strong soft arm. We found that the HSA arm was able to push 2.3 kg vertically and lift more than 600 g when positioned horizontally, supporting 0.33 Nm of torque at the base. The arm is able to move between waypoints while carrying the large payload and demonstrates consistent movement with path variance below 5 mm. The HSA arm's ability to perform active grasping with HSA grippers was also demonstrated, requiring 20 N of pull force to dislodge the object. Finally, we test the arm in a pipe inspection task. The arm is able to locate all the defects while sliding against the inner surface of the pipe, demonstrating its compliance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_09819
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Torque Responsive Metamaterials Enable High Payload Soft Robot Arms
Good, Ian
Balaji, Srivatsan
Oh, David
Thomas, Sawyer
Lipton, Jeffrey I.
Robotics
Soft robots have struggled to support large forces and moments while also supporting their own weight against gravity. This limits their ability to reach certain configurations necessary for tasks such as inspection and pushing objects up. We have overcome this limitation by creating an electrically driven metamaterial soft arm using handed shearing auxetics (HSA) and bendable extendable torque resistant (BETR) shafts. These use the large force and torque capacity of HSAs and the nestable torque transmission of BETRs to create a strong soft arm. We found that the HSA arm was able to push 2.3 kg vertically and lift more than 600 g when positioned horizontally, supporting 0.33 Nm of torque at the base. The arm is able to move between waypoints while carrying the large payload and demonstrates consistent movement with path variance below 5 mm. The HSA arm's ability to perform active grasping with HSA grippers was also demonstrated, requiring 20 N of pull force to dislodge the object. Finally, we test the arm in a pipe inspection task. The arm is able to locate all the defects while sliding against the inner surface of the pipe, demonstrating its compliance.
title Torque Responsive Metamaterials Enable High Payload Soft Robot Arms
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.09819