Engineers make pneumatic computer memory to control soft robots

Engineers from the University of California Riverside have revealed new creations designed to control soft robot movements. The engineers revealed a air-powered computer memory system that addressed one of the biggest obstacles to advance soft robotics. The main obstacles are incompatibility between pneumatic and electronics.

Usually the movement of soft robots is controlled by air that moves into and gets out of the bladder in the robot. Soft and springy soft robot limbs, often with grippers, and soft robots can be superior to traditional rigid robots that carry out certain tasks, especially complicated. Soft robots are also safer to work with humans, making it the main focus of investigations by researchers around the world. The existing system to control pneumatic soft robots uses electronic valves and computers to control the position of the moving part.

Electronic parts increase the cost, size and demands of soft robot power that limit its usefulness. The researchers created a system that utilizes “pneumatic logic.” Pneumatic logic theory precedes electronic computers and has been used to provide a sophisticated level of control in components for climate control systems and other tasks in the early 1900s. In the pneumatic logic system, air rather than electricity to the computer channel and represents or dies.

The team realizes that they can make pneumatic logic memory for soft robots to allow them to remember and maintain the position of the moving part. Scientists also build RAM chips using microfluidal valves rather than electronic transistors. The microfluidal valve was originally designed to control the fluid flow and control the air flow. The valve in the system is sealed against the pressure differential even when disconnected from the air supply line creates a trapped pressure difference that functions as a memory that maintains a state of robotic actuation.

The team modifies the microfluidal valve to handle a larger air flow level producing eight-bit pneumatic ram chips that control larger and faster robots. This system is inserted into a pair of hand 3D print rubber. This system displays the extended soft robot radius when connected to atmospheric pressure and is contracted when connected to a vacuum. The team could get their soft robot hands to play songs on the piano.