Soft Robots for Extreme Environments: Removing Electronic Control
Stephen T. Mahon, Anthony Buchoux, Mohammed E. Sayed, Lijun Teng, and, Adam A. Stokes

TL;DR
This paper presents a novel electronics-free soft robotic system that uses fluidic logic to achieve locomotion and gripping, enhancing safety and compliance in extreme environments like offshore oil and gas operations.
Contribution
It introduces a fluidic control system with integrated switches and logic, enabling complex behaviors without electronics, suitable for hazardous environments.
Findings
Successfully demonstrated locomotion and gripping using fluidic logic
Developed a fluidic automata with memory and logic functions
Enhanced complexity of soft robots with integrated fluidic control
Abstract
The ignition of flammable liquids and gases in offshore oil and gas environments is a major risk and can cause loss of life, serious injury, and significant damage to infrastructure. Power supplies that are used to provide regulated voltages to drive motors, relays, and power electronic controls can produce heat and cause sparks. As a result, the European Union requires ATEX certification on electrical equipment to ensure safety in such extreme environments. Implementing designs that meet this standard is time-consuming and adds to the cost of operations. Soft robots are often made with soft materials and can be actuated pneumatically, without electronics, making these systems inherently compliant with this directive. In this paper, we aim to increase the capability of new soft robotic systems moving from a one-to-one control-actuator architecture and implementing an electronics-free…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
