Fluid‐driven soft CoboSkin for safer human–robot collaboration: fabrication and adaptation

Heng, W., Yang, G., Pang, G., Ye, Z., Lv, H., Du, J., Zhao, G. and Pang, Z. (2021) Fluid‐driven soft CoboSkin for safer human–robot collaboration: fabrication and adaptation. Advanced Intelligent Systems, 3(3), 2000038. (doi: 10.1002/aisy.202000038)

Abstract

In human–robot collaboration, the wrapping material on robots is not only required to have the sensing ability to adapt to the external environment but also need to have the function of cushioning the collision between human and robot. Herein, a fluid‐driven soft robot skin with sensing and actuating function is successfully applied to a collaborative robot and working well with the host robot. The skin is an integration of sponge force sensors and pneumatic actuators. By altering the internal air pressure in pneumatic actuators, the developed robot skin can provide more than ten times tunable stiffness and sensitivity. In addition, the skin can reduce the peak force of the collision and achieve the actuating function. Using three‐dimensional printing and computer‐aided design, the skin is fabricated and attached to a collaborative robot conformally. Drawing upon the data acquisition and control system, the experiment for illustrating the applications of the CoboSkin is successfully performed. The skin provides the robot with multi‐functions, which are similar to the human muscle and skin attached to human bones. By mimicking human skin and muscle with tactile sensing function and stiffness tuning function, CoboSkin can enhance the adaptability of the robot to human daily life.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 51975513, the Major Research Plan of National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 51890884, the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, China under Grant LR20E050003, the Zhejiang University Special Scientific Research Fund for COVID‐19 Prevention and Control under Grant 2020XGZX017, the Director Foundation of the State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems under Grant SKLoFP_ZZ_2002, the Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 51821093, Robotics Institute of Zhejiang University under Grant K18‐508116‐008‐03, and China's Thousand Talents Plan Young Professionals Program.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Zhao, Dr Guodong
• Authors: Heng, W., Yang, G., Pang, G., Ye, Z., Lv, H., Du, J., Zhao, G., and Pang, Z.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Systems Power and Energy
• Journal Name: Advanced Intelligent Systems
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 2640-4567
• ISSN (Online): 2640-4567
• Published Online: 08 July 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Advanced Intelligent Systems 3(3): 2000038
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License