Gasgoo News Researchers took inspiration from a simple children’s toy, a bouncing ball, to make the design more agile and capableforecastof soft robots have found a key breakthrough. Soft robots made of flexible materials have great promise for fine work, but their complex movements have been difficult to predict and control, especially dynamic movements like jumping.
Image source: Advanced Robotics Research
According to foreign media reports, a joint research team from Keio University and The University of Osaka published a research paper in the journal “Advanced Robotics Research”, detailing the physics of hemispherical thin shell bouncing, which is the basic building block of soft robot jumping. The team accurately analyzed the bounce dynamics of these hemispherical thin shells, focusing on the key role of the thin shell contact with the ground through a combination of precision experiments, numerical simulations and theoretical calculations. The researchers made a variety of silicone rubber hemispherical shells and used tabletop-scale experimental setups and air pressure to control their deformation.
