Design and Summary Analysis Draft 1

 According to the article, "Soft robotic arm..." (2020), researchers from MIT constructed a soft robot that is capable of estimating its 3D configuration through its skin that is covered with sensors. However, the sensors and neural network still lack refinement to accurately capture subtle and dynamic motions.  

There are two advantages the soft robot have over traditional rigid robots. Due to its soft body, it has the ability to move in infinite number of ways at any time. Secondly, it does not rely on motion-capture cameras to provide feedback regarding 3D movement and positions. Instead, it relies on its own sensors. "The sensors can be fabricated using off-the shelf materials"(Ryan Truby,n.d,Paragraph 5). Dr.Truby commented that the sensors are easy to fabricate, meaning any lab will be able to construct their owns sensor. Dr.Truby also highlighted that the materials used for constructing the sensor should possess "piezoresistive" properties. The material's resistance varies according to the motion. The change in resistance affects voltage output linearly. The resulted voltage output will then be relay to the robot.

However, its ability to move without restriction results in increased difficulty to use it in "control" applications. To alleviate this problem, new robots have to undergo deep learning. Doing so, the robot will progressively be more effective in capturing meaningful feedback signals. Researchers also aim to utilize better sensors to provide better deep learning methods to reduce training time.

 While the soft robotic arm is more suitable than traditional robot in real-life scenarios, technology has yet to be refined.“Think of your own body: You can close your eyes and reconstruct the world based on feedback from your skin,”(Daniela Rus,n.d,Paragraph 7). One future aim is to construct a soft robot that is dexterous and capable of manipulating objects in its surrounding.

In the article "Advanced carbon materials...", it states that carbon materials such as Carbon Nanomaterial and Graphene are strong contenders for this particular application that we are interested in. It is said that these 2 materials can be easily assembled into multi-scaled macroscopic structures, resulting in good flexibility and conductivity. The article further states that carbon materials can be prepared through different approaches, thus creating even more room for future development. 

Dr.Truby mentioned:"As hypothesized, the sensors did capture the trunk’s general movement, but it was really noisy. Substituting the original sensor material for carbon based material will be a great improvement in "noise" reduction, thus leading to a shorter learning time for the robot as extensive deep learning will no longer be required.

 References:

Zhang.Y, Jian.M(2017, Sep 1) Advanced Carbon Materials For Flexible And Wearable Sensors. https://engine.scichina.com/publisher/scp/journal/SCMs/60/11/10.1007/s40843-017-9077-x?slug=fulltext

Matheson,R.(2020, February 16). Soft robotic arms uses flexible sensors to understand its position. Control Engineering. https://www.controleng.com/articles/soft-robotic-arm-uses-flexible-sensors-to-understand-its-position/

Comments

  1. Brad Blackstone16 February 2021 at 19:16

    Thank you, Mark, for this effort. There are many strengths to your essay. You have a fairly clear, detailed summary and you've done good research. As I review your thesis focus though, I feel it could be sharpened, the supporting body paragraphs and their initial topic sentences could be brought more in line with the controlling ideas of the thesis, and you could do a better job of integrating outside info. You need to work on the citation conventions and the reference list. I look forward to discussing the second draft on Thursday.

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