Ph.D. student James Jian demonstrates one of the 3D printed flexoskeleton robots. They only take 10 minutes to print the parts, and they cost just under $1. (Image Credit: UC San Diego)
Engineers from the University of California San Diego have developed a new way to create soft, flexible, 3D-printed robots that is less expensive, only takes minutes and doesn’t need any special machinery to build. Their new method comes from rethinking how soft robots are built. Instead of adding soft materials to a rigid robot body, the team attached rigid parts to key components. They drew inspiration for the new robot, called flexoskeletons, from insect exoskeletons made of rigid and soft parts. The team presented their findings in the journal Soft Robotics on April 7, 2020.
“We hope that these flexoskeletons will lead to the creation of a new class of soft, bioinspired robots,” said Nick Gravish, a mechanical engineering professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. “We want to make soft robots easier to build for researchers all over the world.”
The new technique makes it possible to develop large groups of flexoskeleton robots with minimal manual assembly, and it contains a library of Lego-like components that can be easily swapped out. Flexoskeletons are created by 3D printing a rigid material on a thin layer that acts as a flexible base. These are printed with different features that enhance the overall rigidity in certain areas, combining both softness and rigidity for movement and support. The team will be making their designs readily available to educational institutions, including high schools.
The robots have Lego-like components, which can easily be swapped out if they need to be replaced. (Image Credit: UC San Diego)
It took one flexoskeleton just 10 minutes to print, which can be done using most inexpensive commercial 3D printers, and the materials only cost under $1. It takes less than two hours to print and assemble the entire structure of a flexoskeleton robot.
Researchers observed a variety of different materials until they discovered that a layer of polycarbonate is the best flexible surface to print the flexoskeletons on. After examining the behaviors of insects, they added more features to help increase rigidity.
Ultimately, their goal is to develop an assembly line that can print the entire structure of flexoskeleton robots without needing to manually put them together. According to the engineers, a swarm of these small robots could perform the same amount of work, if not more, as one massive robot can on its own.
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