Air-Releasable Soft Robots for Explosive Ordnance Disposal
Tyler C. Looney, Nathan M. Savard, Gus T. Teran, Archie G. Milligan,, Ryley I. Wheelock, Michael Scalise, Daniel P. Perno, Gregory C. Lewin, Carlo, Pinciroli, Cagdas D. Onal, and Markus P. Nemitz

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…
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Taxonomy
TopicsFluid Dynamics Simulations and Interactions · Micro and Nano Robotics · Soft Robotics and Applications
