Session: Rising Stars of Mechanical Engineering Celebration & Showcase

Paper Number: 147891

147891 - Softopus: A Soft Octopus Robot Powered by Artificial Muscles 

The design of a cephalopods-inspired soft robot capable of both texture modulation and manipulation/locomotion, has not been attempted so far. This can be ascribed to the limitations of the actuators (e.g., electric, pneumatic, or smart materials such as shape memory alloys or electroactive polymers) and sensors (mainly conventional piezoceramic crystals) used, that would make the final device rigid, heavy, cumbersome, and expensive.

This project aims to overcome all the limitations mentioned above by using artificial muscles (i.e., Twisted and Coiled Artificial Muscles (TCAMs) and Twisted Spiral Artificial Muscles (TSAMs)) and geopolymer sensors, to develop SOFTOPUS: a soft intelligent underwater robot the size of a real octopus and capable of performing adaptive texture modulation and manipulation/locomotion at the same time.

Flexible TCAMs and TSAMs were recently developed by the PI from inexpensive carbon fibers and polymer fibers, respectively. They are able to lift up to 12,600 times their own weight and provide 2000% of output strain, respectively, with only 0.02 V/mm of electrical input. Moreover, they provide within one single flexible component the same biomechanical performance of skeletal muscles in terms of active/passive force by paving the way for a truly bioinspired design and fine motion.

Geopolymers, inexpensive ceramic materials fabricated via a room-temperature manufacturing process similar to that of ordinary cement, were recently proposed by the PI as low-cost and customizable sensors, with unique performance in wet conditions.

The large force and strain and the small input voltage of flexible TSAMs and TCAMs, combined with the low cost of both artificial muscles and geopolymers, will allow us to overcome the limitations of existing actuators and sensors in terms of flexibility, size, weight, and cost.

This project will allow many of the principal investigator’s current federally funded projects to converge toward a common goal to develop a novel underwater soft robot with unique performance, able to emulate cephalopods for manipulation, locomotion, texture change, and sensing, with revolutionary impact on soft robotic and militarily relevant robotic applications.

This robot can be used to perform underwater monitoring, rescue, and assembly operations. At the same time, it can camouflage with the surrounding environment, improve its swimming efficiency, and even detach biofilms from its body, by changing the texture of its skin.

These applications are highly relevant to the U.S. Navy and scientific progress in the naval research field. Thanks to flexible and compact artificial muscles, this soft robot has the potential to reduce the gap between biological and synthetic systems and improve the state of the art in several fields, including robotics, material science, hydrodynamics, and naval engineering.

Presenting Author: Caterina Lamuta The University of Iowa

Presenting Author Biography: Caterina Lamuta received her B.S. (summa cum laude) and M.S. (summa cum laude) in Mechanical Engineering in 2011 and 2013, respectively, from the University of Calabria (UNICAL), Italy. As a student at UNICAL, Caterina was recipient of several awards including the Best student award from the College of Engineering in 2009. From 2014 to 2017 Caterina was a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at UNICAL. In 2016 she was a visiting scholar at the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and in 2017 she was selected as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, at UIUC.
She is Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Iowa, and director of the Smart Multifunctional Material Systems (SMMS) Lab since 2018.
Dr. Lamuta is the recipient of the 2021 DARPA Young Faculty Award (including the DARPA Director’s Fellowship), the 2023 ONR Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award, 2022 Early Career Scholar of the Year award from Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Iowa, and 2022 Early Career Faculty Excellence Award from the College of Engineering at the University of Iowa. Her research is also funded by AFOSR, NSF, and NASA.
Her research interests include smart materials, multifunctional nanocomposites, artificial muscles, bio-inspired systems, artificial synapses, artificial camouflage, and depth-sensing indentation.

Authors:

Caterina Lamuta The University of Iowa