Development of flexible ciliary actuators and their application to mobile robots

Abstract

The present paper describes new flexible ciliary actuators made of thin urethane rubber, to imitate the hydraulic skeleton found in soft creatures, such as earthworms. Several trial actuators are manufactured while varying the number of fluid chambers from 1 to 3. These actuators are driven by fluid pressure and different methods of posture restoration. A new multiple two-way ciliary actuator sheet with an embedded multi-layered fluid circuit is proposed. A pipe inspection robot of 27 mm in height with ciliary actuator arrays moves at 5.4 mm/s. A new ciliary actuator with a z-shaped body is also discussed.