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MORI-A CPS: 3D printed soft actuators with 4D assembly simulation

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Abstract

Soft modular robotics combines soft materials and modular mechanisms. We are developing a vacuum-driven actuator module, MORI-A, which combines a 3D-printed flexible parallel cross structure with a cube-shaped hollow silicone. The MORI-A module has five deformation modes: no deformation, uniform contraction, uniaxial contraction, flexion, and shear. By combining these modules, soft robots with a variety of deformabilities can be constructed. However, assembling MORI-A requires predicting the deformation from the posture and mode of the modules, making assembly difficult. To overcome this problem, this study aims to construct a system called “MORI-A CPS,” which can predict the motion of a soft robot composed of MORI-A modules by simply arranging cubes in a virtual space. This paper evaluates how well the motion of virtual MORI-A modules, defined as a combination of swelling and shrinking voxels, approximates real-world motion. Then, it shows that the deformations of virtual soft robots constructed via MORI-A CPS are similar to those of real robots.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP17H01224, JP18H05471, JP19H01122, JST COI Grant Number JPMJCE1314, JST-OPERA Program Grant Number JPMJOP1844, JST-OPERA Program Grant Number JPMJOP1614, Moonshot Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research and Development Program (MS508, Grant Number JPJ009237) and the Cabinet Office (CAO), Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP), An intelligent knowledge processing infrastructure, integrating physical and virtual domains, and Intensive Support for Young Promising Researchers, Development of Animaloid Technology with Innovative Sensory Communication Capabilities Elicited by Comprehensive Integration of Advanced Soft Matter Material Technologies (funding agency: NEDO).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering, Yamagata University, Yamagata, Japan

    Shoma Abe, Jun Ogawa, Yosuke Watanabe, MD Nahin Islam Shiblee, Masaru Kawakami & Hidemitsu Furukawa

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  1. Shoma Abe
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  2. Jun Ogawa
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  3. Yosuke Watanabe
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  4. MD Nahin Islam Shiblee
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  5. Masaru Kawakami
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  6. Hidemitsu Furukawa
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shoma Abe.

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This work was presented in part at the joint symposium of the 28th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, the 8th International Symposium on BioComplexity, and the 6th International Symposium on Swarm Behavior and Bio-Inspired Robotics (Beppu, Oita and Online, January 25–27, 2023).

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Abe, S., Ogawa, J., Watanabe, Y. et al. MORI-A CPS: 3D printed soft actuators with 4D assembly simulation. Artif Life Robotics 28, 609–617 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-023-00878-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-023-00878-8

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