A proprioceptive DE sensor skin for a fish-like continuum robot

Iain A. Anderson; Markus Haller; Christopher Walker; Derek Orbaugh; Simon Freeman; Samuel Rosset

doi:10.1117/12.2585325

22 March 2021 A proprioceptive DE sensor skin for a fish-like continuum robot

Iain A. Anderson, Markus Haller, Christopher Walker, Derek Orbaugh, Simon Freeman, Samuel Rosset

Proceedings Volume 11587, Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXIII; 1158723 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2585325
Event: SPIE Smart Structures + Nondestructive Evaluation, 2021, Online Only

Abstract

The superior swimming ability of fish has encouraged the development of fish-like robots. To fully capture fish swimming kinematics a continuum under-actuated robot can be used, and there are many examples of such robots in the literature. But for realistic fish-like swimming in strong currents such robots will benefit from closed-loop feedback. We demonstrate how this can be achieved, underwater, using a stretchy neoprene sensing skin with embedded, discrete dielectric elastomer stretch sensors. The latest prototype skin, with 8 sensors, 4 on each side, is currently being evaluated on an underactuated tensegrity fish-like robot driven by a stepper motor. Carangiform movement of the body has been characterized using cameras and this data has been compared with a virtual model of the robot that uses sensor input for real-time model kinematic data. Four angles along the body defined the shape. A root mean square error between model and true camera angles of less than 3° was calculated for realistic cangiform motion at 0.5 Hz tail frequency.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Iain A. Anderson, Markus Haller, Christopher Walker, Derek Orbaugh, Simon Freeman, and Samuel Rosset "A proprioceptive DE sensor skin for a fish-like continuum robot", Proc. SPIE 11587, Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXIII, 1158723 (22 March 2021); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2585325

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