Thin Soft Robots set for safety-critical built environments

Developed by a team at the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre (UTC) in Manufacturing and On-Wing Technology at Nottingham University, the robots feature multimodal locomotion capabilities that could transform the way industries conduct inspections and maintenance. Their work is detailed in Nature Communications.

Thin Soft Robots (TS-Robots) are 1.7mm thick, enabling them to access and navigate in confined spaces, such as gaps beneath doors.

TS-Robots are equipped with a sandwich structure driven by dielectric elastomers, allowing them to crawl, climb, swim, and transition between solid and liquid domains. This adaptability is said to make them ideal for complex environments that include multiple obstacles across various terrains.

In a statement, Dr Xin Dong, project originator and principal investigator, said: "Our TS-Robots are designed to tackle the scientific challenges of multimodal locomotion in soft robotics, particularly when encountering obstacles such as narrow gaps, trenches, walls, and liquids along their navigation paths.

"Unlike conventional robots, which face significant limitations in these environments, our technology offers a potential breakthrough for exploring difficult and complex terrains."

Notably, the Thin Soft Robots are claimed to exhibit outstanding performance in terms of output force and speed, achieving forces up to 41 times their weight and speeds of 1.16 times their body length per second.

This enables them to collaborate with multiple TS-Robots or with other platforms, such as drones, enhancing their functionality in tasks such as inspecting challenging environments or delivering goods.

Preliminary tests have demonstrated the potential of the TS-Robots in real-world applications, including the inspection of electrical generators of advanced hybrid-electric power systems. In this application, the robots navigated the narrow air gap between the rotor and stator of a generator, a feat that traditional tools and robots cannot achieve.

The research team plans to further optimise the robots’ design and explore new applications in sectors such as aerospace and energy maintenance and nuclear decommissioning.