Colloquia

Summary

The ability to control stiffness plays an essential role in soft robotics actuation. One of the most common methods in soft robotics is continuous fiber reinforcement due to the high mechanical properties provided by this method. Precision and repeatability play a significant role in the robot's performance in continuous fiber reinforcement. Despite the importance of precision and popularity of this continuous fiber reinforcement, most current methods are either manual or limited in patterns. Therefore, this work presents a new automatic method to employ conventional FDM printers to print a loom and use head changing mechanism to use a fiber extruder to weave the continuous fibers around the loom and create complex 3D geometries required for soft robotics applications. In addition, this work investigated how this method enables us to have more control over the stiffness of the soft material by changing the loom parameters such as diameter and distance and the placement of the pins. Furthermore, inspired by a handcrafting technique, straw weaving, we used the pins to add vertical fibers to the structure to create more actuation possibilities. Various soft actuators were fabricated to present the method's capability in creating complex and 3D structures. Finally, the developed method was applied to create new range of hybrid robot to further investigate the possibility of the proposed technique.