Most people likely think of robots as complex electronic devices, made up of many parts that have to be assembled in factories. An experimental new non-electronic bot, however, can be 3D-printed all in one piece, and it’s powered by nothing but air.
The soft-bodied robot was created by postdoctoral scholar Yichen Zhai and colleagues, in the lab of Prof. Michael Tolley at UC San Diego’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
It was 3D-printed in one continuous 58-hour step, composed of a single piece of soft and flexible thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). Oh yes, and it has six legs. All of those appendages have four degrees of freedom, meaning they can move up and down plus forward and backward.
The legs are moved not by electric motors, but instead by a steady stream of compressed air. That air continuously flows from a pump or onboard CO2 canister, through an internal “pneumatic oscillating circuit,” and ultimately out of exhaust ports in the robot’s body.
As the air goes through the circuit, it sequentially triggers a series of TPU actuators which repeatedly move the legs as two sets of three limbs. In this manner, the robot is able to waddle its way across different types of terrain – it can even walk underwater.
David Baillot/University of California San Diego
In its fully self-contained configuration, the bot’s runtime is limited by the capacity of its CO2 canister. If hooked up to an external pump, however, it should reportedly be able to walk for three days straight before requiring any maintenance. And even if it does wear out after three days, approximately US$20 is all it takes to make a new one.
It is hoped that descendants of the robot could one day be used to explore settings where electronics won’t work or are impractical, such as in high-radiation environments or the surface of other planets. Future research will focus on methods of storing the CO2 within the robot, and on the use of 100% biodegradable materials.
“This is a completely different way of looking at building machines,” says Tolley.
A paper on the research was recently published in the journal Advanced Science News. You can see the robot in six-legged action, in the video below.
Monolithic Desktop Digital Fabrication of Autonomous Walking Robots
Source: UC San Diego