Robotic jellyfish was faster live promotionmake Wolf | 12.07.2020
Engineers-researchers from the universities of North Carolina (North Carolina State University) and the city of temple (Temple University) has finally managed to develop a fully padded, medunarodnih
robots. Successful project announced the publication of ScienceDaily.
When creating a robotic jellyfish used so-called “prestressed” polymers. They will make soft robots moving and quite powerful. According to the American
scientists develop soft robots, these devices more promising than hard and soon have a chance to surpass their less flexible colleagues.
In North Carolina on the creation of soft robots have been working for more than one year. First, the designers were able to make robots-cheetahs, who for all their softness and flexibility (which provide
special polymers) could not do without a rigid frame-the”backbone.”
Robot jellyfish was much more slow, what was the fee for the complete absence of the hard structural elements.
The principle of motion of the robot jellyfish is based on a combination of the two layers of the same elastic polymer. A single layer of material is pre-stretched, creating a so-called strained layer,
the second polymer is not subjected to the initial voltage, and includes an air channel. Pumping in the air channel, the robot can be made to bend. Due to the thickness of the pre –
the stressed layer has the ability to control the direction and shape of bending.
The first created a soft robot in its movements resembled the larva of an insect, curtailing his body, then jumping forward, quickly releasing the stored energy.
Robot jellyfish is a bit more complicated. It has a pre-stressed disc-shaped layer stretched in four directions. His channel layer in the form of a ring allows to form the dome, which
looks like a jellyfish.
When the robot jellyfish “relaxes”, the dome curves up like a shallow bowl. When air is pumped into the channel layer, the dome quickly bent down, pushing the water and moving forward. In
experimental tests robot jellyfish demonstrated the average speed of movement at 53.3 mm / sec. The creators believe that this is an excellent result, given that none of the three
their observed species of these jellyfish prototype can not move faster than 30 mm / sec.
The next step was the creation of a soft robot gripper. Due to a busy layer, they are able to hold the load at rest (i.e. not expending excess energy). Grips
unfold with the air, that is, only in order to release the cargo. Thus, improving the functionality of soft robots and their speed, the researchers are trying
to expand the range of application of such devices.
While no data on the creation of a series of prototypes of soft robots, but, according to the American researchers enthusiasts, it is not far off.
Robotics
Journal: Journal IT-News, Subscription to magazines
