2022/03/11 by Gaurav Singh, Singh, Gaurav, Ahsan I. Nawroj +3
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · #Cellular Mechanics and Interactions #Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence #Advanced Materials and Mechanics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2203.06231
Modular Active Cell Robots (MACROs) are a design paradigm for modular robotic\nhardware that uses only two components, namely actuators and passive compliant\njoints. Under the MACRO approach, a large number of actuators and joints are\nconnected to create mesh-like cellular robotic structures that can be actuated\nto achieve large deformation and shape-change. In this two-part paper, we study\nthe importance of different possible mesh topologies within the MACRO\nframework. Regular and semi-regular tilings of the plane are used as the\ncandidate mesh topologies and simulated using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). In\nPart 1, we use FEA to evaluate their passive stiffness characteristics. Using a\nstrain energy method, the homogenized material properties (Young's modulus,\nshear modulus, and Poisson's ratio) of different mesh topologies are computed\nand compared. The results show that the stiffnesses increase with increasing\nnodal connectivity and that stretching-dominated topologies have higher\nstiffness compared to bending-dominated ones. We also investigate the role of\nrelative actuator-node stiffness on the overall mesh characteristics. This\nanalysis shows that the stiffness of stretching-dominated topologies scale\ndirectly with their cross-section area whereas the bending-dominated ones do\nnot have such a direct relationship.\n