Recent progress on underwater soft robots: adhesion, grabbing, actuating, and sensing

Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology

Bioengineering and Biotechnology

Yan Shi¹  Maolin Cai¹  Qihui Yu²  Yeming Zhang³  Chuangchuang Liu³  Kai Wang³  Demin Kong³  Shuping Li³ 

[1] School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China;School of Mechanical Engineering, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, China;School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo, China;

关键词: underwater robot;    soft robotics;    underwater manipulation;    soft manipulator;    biomimetics;    bioinspired robotics;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fbioe.2023.1196922

 received in 2023-03-30, accepted in 2023-07-20,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The research on biomimetic robots, especially soft robots with flexible materials as the main structure, is constantly being explored. It integrates multi-disciplinary content, such as bionics, material science, mechatronics engineering, and control theory, and belongs to the cross-disciplinary field related to mechanical bionics and biological manufacturing. With the continuous development of various related disciplines, this area has become a hot research field. Particularly with the development of practical technologies such as 3D printing technology, shape memory alloy, piezoelectric materials, and hydrogels at the present stage, the functions and forms of soft robots are constantly being further developed, and a variety of new soft robots keep emerging. Soft robots, combined with their own materials or structural characteristics of large deformation, have almost unlimited degrees of freedom (DoF) compared with rigid robots, which also provide a more reliable structural basis for soft robots to adapt to the natural environment. Therefore, soft robots will have extremely strong adaptability in some special conditions. As a type of robot made of flexible materials, the changeable pose structure of soft robots is especially suitable for the large application environment of the ocean. Soft robots working underwater can better mimic the movement characteristics of marine life in the hope of achieving more complex underwater tasks. The main focus of this paper is to classify different types of underwater organisms according to their common motion modes, focusing on the achievements of some bionic mechanisms in different functional fields that have imitated various motion modes underwater in recent years (e.g., the underwater sucking glove, the underwater Gripper, and the self-powered soft robot). The development of various task types (e.g., grasping, adhesive, driving or swimming, and sensing functions) and mechanism realization forms of the underwater soft robot are described based on this article.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Zhang, Kong, Shi, Cai, Yu, Li, Wang and Liu.