The Design And Development Of Ubranch Bot An Untethered Branchcrawling Caterpillarinspired Soft Robot Shane Rozenlevy by Shane Rozen-levy instant download after payment.

A soft climbing robot has the potential to access locations such as
wiring ducts and tree canopies that are unreachable by humans and
traditional rigid robots. In this thesis I present a soft, branch-crawling
robot that is inspired by the passive gripping mechanisms used by caterpillars.
I first discuss a tethered version of the robot. I then present
the design of an untethered version of the robot. The conformability
of the robot’s soft body makes it uniquely suited to move in a complex
3-D environment. A key innovation is that grip release is actively
controlled and coordinated with propulsion generated by stored elastic
energy. The robot is molded from silicone rubber and actuated using
remote motor-tendons coupled to the structure through Bowden cables.
Grip is achieved passively through an elastic flexure that pushes a compliant
finger against the dowel. The body structure allows the tethered
robot to crawl horizontally, vertically, and along branches. The untethered
robot can crawl horizontally and on branches, but it is unable to
crawl vertically. This robot demonstrates some key advantages of a soft
robotic platform over traditional rigid robots. It also serves as an example
of many of the issues with untethered soft robots. The tethered
robot has a light-weight, clean design, while the untethered robot has
a heavy, cluttered design.