A Continuum Robot Surface of Woven, McKibben Muscles Embedded in and Giving Shape to Rooms

Robots are typically designed as occupants of rooms, adapting to, and navigating within them. “Robot surfaces,” an emerging robot typology, are not occupants of but integral with rooms, physically shaping rooms to support human activity. We report on an advancement of robot surfaces formed by weaving McKibben Pneumatic Air Muscles that, when actuated, morph a 2D planar surface to generate 3D geometries including a “spherical cap.” Following our foundational study at different scales with different materials, we developed a full-scale prototype that offers an intimate and private space for people meeting in open plan environments. We report on our research, focusing on a design case, and validate the full-scale prototype as compared to our Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) model for three useful configurations. Our quantitative and qualitative results suggest that our robot surface can support human activity as envisioned. This research contributes foundational understanding of an emerging category of robotics from which our team and peers can build.