JSEL: Jamming Skin Enabled Locomotion

A soft, mobile, morphing robot is a desirable platform for traversing rough terrain and navigating into small holes. In this work, a new paradigm in soft robots is presented that utilizes jamming of a granular medium. The concept of activators (as opposed to actuators) is presented to jam and unjam...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems pp. 5672 - 5677
Main Authors Steltz, E., Mozeika, A., Rodenberg, N., Brown, E., Jaeger, H.M.
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.10.2009
Subjects
Appropriate technology
Dielectrics
Haptic interfaces
Intelligent robots
Jamming
Mobile robots
Phase change materials
Pneumatic actuators
Skin
USA Councils
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Summary:A soft, mobile, morphing robot is a desirable platform for traversing rough terrain and navigating into small holes. In this work, a new paradigm in soft robots is presented that utilizes jamming of a granular medium. The concept of activators (as opposed to actuators) is presented to jam and unjam cells that then modulate the direction and amount of work done by a single central actuator. A prototype jamming soft robot utilizing JSEL (Jamming Skin Enabled Locomotion) with external power and control is discussed and both morphing results and mobility (rolling) results are presented. Future directions for the design of a soft, hole traversing robot are discussed, as is the role and promises of jamming as an enabling technology for soft robotics.
ISBN:9781424438037
1424438039
ISSN:2153-0858
DOI:10.1109/IROS.2009.5354790