A Pipe-Climbing Soft Robot

This paper presents the design and testing of a bio-inspired soft pneumatic robot that can achieve locomotion along the outside of a cylinder. The robot uses soft pneumatic actuators called FREEs (Fiber Reinforced Elastomeric Enclosure), which can have a wide range of deformation behavior upon pressurization. The robot being soft and compliant can grasp and move along cylinders of varying dimensions. Two different types of FREEs are used in the robot namely (a) extending FREEs and (b) bending FREEs. These actuators are arranged in such a way that the bending actuators are used to grip the pipe while the extending actuators generate forward motion as well as bending for direction control. The modular design of the robot provides simplicity and ease of maintenance. The entire robot is made of flexible actuators and can withstand external impact with minimal to no damage. The maximum speed achieved for horizontal motion is 4.2 mm/s and for vertical motion is 2.1 mm/s.