A Fast Rolling Soft Robot Driven by Dielectric Elastomer

This paper presents a fast rolling soft robot (RSR) driven by dielectric elastomer. Through novel structure design based on multisegment dielectric elastomer minimum energy structure, the robot appears to be a fully flexible circular configuration with excellent ability of active deformation for its body controlled by applied voltages. An equivalent pseudo-rigid-body model is developed to provide an effective analysis for the deformation and rolling mechanism. The detailed fabrication process is described, and then a robot prototype is fabricated. The resulting RSR weighs 0.88 g with a diameter of 49.66 mm, which exhibits uniquely advantageous properties including low mass, mechanical flexibility and resilience, silent operation, and fast response. Controlled by three sequential open-loop control signals generated by a developed multiplex high-voltage control system, the robot prototype can realize continuous and steady rolling locomotion on flat ground. The response time of active deformation and restoration of the robot is less than 50 ms, the speed-mass ratio is about 41.22 mm/(s·g) and the maximum speed-diameter ratio reaches approximately 0.95 s^-1. Compared with the previous similar rolling soft robots, our robot demonstrates higher rolling speed and larger speed-mass ratio, which can find potential future use in scouting and exploration missions.