A multi-material robotic finger with integrated proprioceptive and tactile capabilities produced with a circular process
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Date
2023
Publication Type
Conference Paper
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yes
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Abstract
When developing or designing biomimetic robotic fingers with rigid and soft components and integrated sensors, fabrication is often a bottle-neck when assembling and casting processing techniques are used. This study introduces a thermoplastic multi-material fabrication approach that allows the printing of fingers with incorporated sensing elements in a single shot. Thermoplastics and thermoplastic elastomers based materials have been selected to demonstrate the circular fabrication process. To exhibit the potential of the method, a sensorized multi-material finger was fabricated using polypropylene (PP) for the rigid bone, styrene-based tri-block co-polymer (TPS) for the soft skin and resistive composites based on TPS and carbon black (CB) for the sensing. The 3D printer was equipped with combined pellet- and filament-based extruders to enable the combined fabrication processing of the materials without additional assembling. This allowed the exploration of a range of designs with different geometric and infill properties. To demonstrate the circular process, the fabricated fingers were recycled and the mechanical properties did not result in a visible degradation. The described multi-material fabrication of soft robotic components allows time efficiency of the production method and the reusability of the materials, which contribute to establishing a sustainable circular process in the future.
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published
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Book title
2023 IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft)
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Pages / Article No.
10122054
Publisher
IEEE
Event
6th IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft 2023)
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Software
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09689 - Katzschmann, Robert / Katzschmann, Robert