TY - JOUR
T1 - Coordinated Use of Structure-Integrated Bistable Actuation Modules for Agile Locomotion
AU - Nishikawa, Satoshi
AU - Arai, Yusuke
AU - Niiyama, Ryuma
AU - Kuniyoshi, Yasuo
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received September 10, 2017; accepted December 26, 2017. Date of publication January 17, 2018; date of current version February 1, 2018. This letter was recommended for publication by Associate Editor H. Choi and Editor Y. Sun upon evaluation of the reviewers comments. This work was supported in part by JST ERATO under Grant JPMJER1501 and JSPS under Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up 15H06140. (Corresponding author: Satoshi Nishikawa.) The authors are with the Department of Mechano-Informatics, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan (e-mail: nisikawa@isi.imi.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp; arai@isi.imi. i.u-tokyo.ac.jp; niiyama@isi.imi.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp; kuniyosh@isi.imi.i.u-tokyo. ac.jp).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.
PY - 2018/4
Y1 - 2018/4
N2 - It is difficult to design agile soft-bodied robots owing to their inherent softness. To overcome this problem, we propose a structure-integrated bistable module that uses snap-through buckling for agile motions. First, we confirmed that a 0.05-m-long module was able to jump to 0.13 m high. Through investigation, we found a range of command parameters within which the module jumps consistently. Moreover, we showed that jumping performance had strong relation to the bending amplitude. Next, we induced a robot with two serially connected modules to roll forward and jump over an obstacle. In rolling, the robot became round for quick locomotion. In jumping, we found that buckling in one module induced buckling in the other module. The difference in buckling time between the two modules was shortened from the order of 0.1 s to the order of 0.01 s. This might be effective for error correction or useful for coordinated motions. These results show the effectiveness of the proposed structure-integrated bistable modules for making agile soft-bodied robots, and suggest ways of exploiting them.
AB - It is difficult to design agile soft-bodied robots owing to their inherent softness. To overcome this problem, we propose a structure-integrated bistable module that uses snap-through buckling for agile motions. First, we confirmed that a 0.05-m-long module was able to jump to 0.13 m high. Through investigation, we found a range of command parameters within which the module jumps consistently. Moreover, we showed that jumping performance had strong relation to the bending amplitude. Next, we induced a robot with two serially connected modules to roll forward and jump over an obstacle. In rolling, the robot became round for quick locomotion. In jumping, we found that buckling in one module induced buckling in the other module. The difference in buckling time between the two modules was shortened from the order of 0.1 s to the order of 0.01 s. This might be effective for error correction or useful for coordinated motions. These results show the effectiveness of the proposed structure-integrated bistable modules for making agile soft-bodied robots, and suggest ways of exploiting them.
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U2 - 10.1109/LRA.2018.2794617
DO - 10.1109/LRA.2018.2794617
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85056819804
SN - 2377-3766
VL - 3
SP - 1018
EP - 1024
JO - IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
JF - IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
IS - 2
M1 - 8260849
ER -