Scientists at Cornell University, the University of Delaware, and Israel's Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have enabled a soft robot to achieve complex motions via fluid-impelled actuators. The six-legged robot includes two syringe pumps and a linked series of elastomer bellows with slender tubes running in two parallel columns to facilitate antagonistic push-pull motions. The tubes induce viscosity, which distributes pressure unevenly and bends the actuator into different contortions and motion patterns.
Researchers connected a series of elastomer bellows with slender tubes, running in a pair of parallel columns, all in a closed system. They developed a full descriptive model that could predict the actuator’s possible motions and anticipate how different input pressures, geometries, and tube and below configurations achieve them – all with a single fluid input. That results in an actuator that can achieve far more complex motions, but without the multiple inputs and complex feedback control those previous methods required.
More information:
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2023/01/soft-robots-harness-viscous-fluids-complex-motions