Design, Fabrication, and Control of Soft Robots with Fluidic Elastomer Actuators

The goal of this thesis is to explore how autonomous robotic systems can be created with soft elastomer bodies powered by fluids. In this thesis we innovate in the design,fabrication, control, and experimental validation of both single and multi-segment soft fluidic elastomer robots. First, this thesis describes an autonomous fluidic elastomer robot that is both self-contained and capable of rapid, continuum body motion.Specifically, the design, modeling, fabrication, and control of a soft fish is detailed,focusing on enabling the robot to perform rapid escape responses. The robot employs a compliant body with embedded actuators emulating the slender anatomical form of a fish. In addition, the robot has a novel fluidic actuation system that drives body motion and has all the subsystems of a traditional robot on-board: power, actuation,processing, and control. At the core of the fish's soft body is an array of Fluidic Elastomer Actuators (FEAs). The fish is designed to emulate escape responses in addition to forward swimming because such maneuvers require rapid body accelerations and continuum body motion. These maneuvers showcase the performance capabilities of this self-contained robot. The kinematics and controllability of the robot during simulated escape response maneuvers are analyzed and compared to studies on biological fish. During escape responses, the soft-bodied robot is shown to have similar input-output relationships to those observed in biological fish. The major implication of this portion of the thesis is that a soft fluidic elastomer robot is shown to be both self-contained and capable of rapid body motion.