DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: A soft ring oscillator

Journal Article · · Science Robotics

Periodic actuation of multiple soft, pneumatic actuators requires coordinated function of multiple, separate components. This work demonstrates a soft, pneumatic ring oscillator that induces temporally coordinated periodic motion in soft actuators using a single, constant-pressure source, without hard valves or electronic controls. The fundamental unit of this ring oscillator is a soft, pneumatic inverter (an inverting Schmitt trigger) that switches between its two states (“on” and “off”) using two instabilities in elastomeric structures: buckling of internal tubing and snap-through of a hemispherical membrane. An odd number of these inverters connected in a loop produces the same number of periodically oscillating outputs, resulting from a third, system-level instability; the frequency of oscillation depends on three system parameters that can be adjusted. These oscillatory output pressures enable several applications, including undulating and rolling motions in soft robots, size-based particle separation, pneumatic mechanotherapy, and metering of fluids. The soft ring oscillator eliminates the need for hard valves and electronic controls in these applications.

Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
ER45852; GEM Fellowship
OSTI ID:
1529671
Journal Information:
Science Robotics, Journal Name: Science Robotics Vol. 4 Journal Issue: 31; ISSN 2470-9476
Publisher:
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (35)

Medically-inspired approaches for the analysis of soft-robotic motion control conference April 2016
Dynamics of snapping beams and jumping poppers journal January 2014
A soft, bistable valve for autonomous control of soft actuators journal March 2018
Micropneumatic Digital Logic Structures for Integrated Microdevice Computation and Control journal December 2007
Pneumatic Networks for Soft Robotics that Actuate Rapidly journal January 2014
Scaling of pneumatic digital logic circuits journal January 2015
A pneumatically-actuated three-way microvalve fabricated with polydimethylsiloxane using the membrane transfer technique journal July 2000
Towards flexible medical instruments: Review of flexible fluidic actuators journal October 2009
Buckling Pneumatic Linear Actuators Inspired by Muscle journal June 2016
Continuous flow separations in microfluidic devices journal January 2007
Soft robot actuators using energy-efficient valves controlled by electropermanent magnets conference September 2011
Logic digital fluidic in miniaturized functional devices: Perspective to the next generation of microfluidic lab-on-chips: Microfluidics and Miniaturization journal February 2017
Pneumatic oscillator circuits for timing and control of integrated microfluidics journal October 2013
Digital logic for soft devices journal March 2019
Soft Error Masking Circuit and Latch Using Schmitt Trigger Circuit conference December 2006
Rotary Actuators Based on Pneumatically Driven Elastomeric Structures journal June 2016
Evidence-Based Compression: Prevention of Stasis and Deep Vein Thrombosis journal January 2004
An integrated design and fabrication strategy for entirely soft, autonomous robots journal August 2016
Soft Robotics journal March 2018
Control of soft machines using actuators operated by a Braille display journal January 2014
Soft Autonomous Materials—Using Active Elasticity and Embedded Distributed Computation book January 2014
Integrated elastomeric components for autonomous regulation of sequential and oscillatory flow switching in microfluidic devices journal April 2010
Soft Robotics: Review of Fluid-Driven Intrinsically Soft Devices; Manufacturing, Sensing, Control, and Applications in Human-Robot Interaction : Review of Fluid-Driven Intrinsically Soft Robots journal May 2017
Soft Dielectric Elastomer Oscillators Driving Bioinspired Robots journal December 2017
Design, fabrication and control of soft robots journal May 2015
Force Control of Textile-Based Soft Wearable Robots for Mechanotherapy conference May 2018
Cyclic hydraulic actuation for soft robotic devices conference October 2016
Design and Characterization of a Peristaltic Actuator Inspired by Esophageal Swallowing journal August 2014
A Resilient, Untethered Soft Robot journal September 2014
An Artificial Muscle Ring Oscillator journal February 2012
Harnessing Viscous Flow to Simplify the Actuation of Fluidic Soft Robots journal May 2019
Semi-autonomous liquid handling via on-chip pneumatic digital logic journal January 2012
Monolithic Microfabricated Valves and Pumps by Multilayer Soft Lithography journal April 2000
Using Explosions to Power a Soft Robot journal February 2013
Hardware Sequencing of Inflatable Nonlinear Actuators for Autonomous Soft Robots journal September 2018

Similar Records

A soft ring oscillator
Journal Article · 2019 · Science Robotics · OSTI ID:1609347

A buckling-sheet ring oscillator for electronics-free, multimodal locomotion
Journal Article · 2022 · Science Robotics · OSTI ID:1980749

Digital logic for soft devices
Journal Article · 2019 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · OSTI ID:1558180

Related Subjects