《Rolling Tensegrity Driven by Pneumatic Soft Actuators》.pdfVIP

2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation RiverCentre, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA May 14-18, 2012 Rolling Tensegrity Driven by Pneumatic Soft Actuators Yuusuke Koizumi, Mizuho Shibata, and Shinichi Hirai Abstract— In this paper, we describe the rolling of a tenseg- rity robot driven by a set of pneumatic soft actuators. Tensegrity is a mechanical structure consisting of a set of rigid elements connected by elastic tensional elements. Introducing tensegrity structures, we are able to build soft robots with larger size. Firstly, we show the prototype of a six-strut tensegrity robot, which is driven by twenty-four pneumatic McKibben actuators. Second, we formulate the geometry of the tensegrity robot. We categorize contact states between a six-strut tensegrity robot and a flat ground into two; axial symmetric contact and planar symmetric contact. Finally, we experimentally examine if rolling can be performed over a flat ground for individual sets of the actuators and discuss the strategy of rolling. I. INTRODUCTION This paper focuses on the rolling of a tensegrity robot driven by a set of pneumatic soft actuators. Recently, locomotion of soft material robots has been studied extensively [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. Robots made of soft material may be able to change their shape for rough Fig. 1. Prototype of six-strut tensegrity robot. The prototype consists of 6 rigid struts and 24 pneumatic McKibben actuators. Two rigid balls are terrain locomotion, obstacle avoidance, and narrow passage attached to the both ends of each strut. Air pressure to the actuators is locomotion. Robots may be able to