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Soft robots like insects

20.04.2020

Engineers at the University of California San Diego (USA) have developed a new method for creating soft, flexible robots using 3D printing, which does not require special equipment and allows you to create soft components for robots faster and cheaper.

They changed the way soft robots are built: instead of figuring out how to add soft materials to a hard robot body, they first created a soft robot body and then added hard parts to key components. The structure of the new robot is similar to the exoskeleton of insects, which have both soft and hard parts. The researchers called their skeletal model "flexoskeleton".

Flexoskeletons are 3D printed from a rigid material on a thin sheet that acts as a flexible base. The most successful material for printing was a sheet of polycarbonate. Printing and assembly of the robot, according to the researchers, takes no more than two hours.

The new method makes it possible to create large groups of robots from flexoskeletons with minimal manual assembly, as well as to assemble a library of Lego-like components so that parts of the robot can be easily changed.

The ultimate goal is to create an assembly line that prints complete flexoskeleton robots and eliminates manual assembly altogether. A swarm of these little robots can do as much work as one massive robot or more.

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