300-year-old piston design reinvented with soft flexible materials

Now, a team of roboticists...has developed a new way to design pistons that replaces their conventional rigid elements with a mechanism using compressible structures inside a membrane made of soft materials.

The resulting 'tension pistons' generate more than three times the force of comparable conventional pistons, eliminate much of the friction, and at low pressures are up to 40 percent more energy efficient

The tension piston concept builds on the team's 'fluid-driven origami-inspired artificial muscles' (FOAMs) that use soft materials to give soft robots more power and motion control while maintaining their flexible architectures. FOAMs are made of a folded structure that is embedded within a fluid in a flexible and hermetically sealed skin. Changing the fluid pressure triggers the origami-like structure to unfold or collapse along a pre-configured geometrical path, which induces a shape-shift in the entire FOAM, allowing it to grasp or release objects or to perform other kinds of work.

The researchers showed that a rise in driving pressure in the second fluid reservoir surrounding the membrane in the chamber increases the tension forces in the membrane material that are directly transmitted to the bonded skeletal structure. By physically linking the skeleton with an actuating element that reaches out of the chamber, compression of the skeleton is coupled to a mechanical movement outside the piston.

The team tested their piston against a conventional piston in a object-crushing task, and showed that it broke objects like wooden pencils at much lower input pressures (pressures generated in the skin-surrounding fluid compartment). At the same input pressures, particularly in the lower pressure range, the tension pistons developed more than three times greater output forces and display more than 40 percent higher energy efficiency by harnessing the fluid-induced tension in their flexible skin materials.

"piston design reinvented with soft flexible materials"

Is this material anything like that they want to use on next-generation robots?

NASA is developing 'soft robots' that look like inflatable 'aliens'

LiveScience, via FoxNews.com/science ^ | May 9, 2019 | Elizabeth Howell, Live Science Contributor

Think robots are all square corners and rigid metal parts? Think again.

Two interns at NASA are part of a larger group working on "soft robots" that could be used for exploring worlds beyond Earth.

This includes the moon, NASA's next major destination for astronauts.

The advantage of a soft robot is that it's flexible and, in some ways, better able to adapt to new environments.

Soft robots move in ways similar to living organisms, which expands their range of motion, perhaps making it easier to squeeze into a tight spot, for example. ..."

"By design, the actuator has chambers, or air bladders, that expand and compress based on the amount of air in them," NASA said in the statement.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...

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NASA-funded inflatable robots are safe in space, and in homes

Brigham Young University
Published on Mar 21, 2019

Working with a grant from NASA, BYU engineers (led by mechanical engineering professor Marc Killpack) are programming inflatable robots so that they can be used in everything from space research to home care.

Because they are inflatable, these robots — like BYU’s King Louie - can operate safely in homes and around people where rigid robots might cause injury to people or structures. ..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjx9m5mONrE

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