Air-Releasable Soft Robots for Explosive Ordnance Disposal

TL;DR

This paper introduces air-releasable soft robots for aerial demining, enabling precise deployment from drones at low altitudes to improve landmine detection and removal in real-world scenarios.

Contribution

It presents a novel soft robotic system with a custom deployment mechanism and vacuum-based actuator for drone-based landmine detection.

Findings

Successful deployment from 4.5 meters altitude

Soft robot approaches dummy landmine after deployment

Demonstrated transition of soft robotics to real-world demining

Abstract

The demining of landmines using drones is challenging; air-releasable payloads are typically non-intelligent (e.g., water balloons or explosives) and deploying them at even low altitudes (~6 meter) is inherently inaccurate due to complex deployment trajectories and constrained visual awareness by the drone pilot. Soft robotics offers a unique approach for aerial demining, namely due to the robust, low-cost, and lightweight designs of soft robots. Instead of non-intelligent payloads, here, we propose the use of air-releasable soft robots for demining. We developed a full system consisting of an unmanned aerial vehicle retrofitted to a soft robot carrier including a custom-made deployment mechanism, and an air-releasable, lightweight (296 g), untethered soft hybrid robot with integrated electronics that incorporates a new type of a vacuum-based flasher roller actuator system. We demonstrate a deployment cycle in which the drone drops the soft robotic hybrid from an altitude of 4.5 m meters and after which the robot approaches a dummy landmine. By deploying soft robots at points of interest, we can transition soft robotic technologies from the laboratory to real-world environments.