Purpose: Describes the design, construction, and performance of the OmniTread serpentine robot. Provides a review of other designs in this new area of mobile robotics. Presents innovative and unique mechanical and control solutions.Design/methodology/approach: A theoretical analysis of key aspects of the mechanical design and their implications on the performance of the robot is presented. Extensive experimentation and testing helped optimize choices of materials for the critical components: tracks and pneumatic bellows. Performance was evaluated by an independent third party: the Southwest Research Institute.Findings: It was found that pneumatic bellows are optimal joint actuators for serpentine robots. They can provide both strength and compliance, depending on the task, at minimal volume and weight.Research limitations/implications: The described prototype is tethered to external sources of electrical and pneumatic power. A smaller and fully self‐contained version of the OmniTread is currently under development.Practical implications: A fully functional OmniTread serpentine robot will provide unprecedented mobility on rough terrain, such as the rubble of a collapsed building. The ability to climb over high obstacles and span large gaps, while still fitting through small openings suggests use of this robot in urban search and rescue, industrial inspection, and military reconnaissance tasks.Originality/value: The OmniTread serpentine robot incorporates multiple original features, which resulted in three recent patents. Most notably are the Integrated pneumatic joint actuator with proportional position and stiffness control system and the “Tracks all Around” design. These features provide dramatic performance improvements in serpentine robots.

This paper presents a new type of wearable haptic device which can augment a sensor glove in various tasks of telemanipulation. We present the details of its two alternative designs jamming tubes or jamming pads, and their control system. These devices use the jamming phenomena to change the stiffness of their elements and block the hand movement when a vacuum is applied. We present results of our experiments to measure static and dynamic changes in stiffness, which can be used to change the perception of grabbing hard or soft objects. The device, at its current state is capable of resisting forces of up to 7 N with 5 mm displacement and can simulate hardness up to the hardness of a rubber. However, time necessary for a complete change of stiffness is high (time constant 0.5 s); therefore, additional cutaneous interface was added in a form of small vibration motors. Finally, we show an application of the haptic interface in our teleoperation system to provide the operator with haptic feedback in a light weight and simple form.

Serpentine robots, also sometimes called "snake robots," are slender, multisegmented vehicles designed to provide greater mobility than conventional wheeled or tracked robots. Serpentine robots are typically comprised of three or more rigid segments connected by two or three degrees of freedom joints. The segments typically have powered wheels, tracks, or legs to propel the vehicle forward; the joints may be powered or unpowered. We have developed a joint actuator system that is highly optimized for use in serpentine robots. This article first presents an analysis of the particular requirements for joint actuators in serpentine robots. We then compare existing actuators against those requirements and show that pneumatic bellows are ideally suited for this application. Following this analysis, this paper introduces our fully functional, pneumatically operated actuation system that is efficiently integrated in the space occupied by a joint. This system, which we call an "integrated joint actuator," also allows simultaneous proportional control of position and stiffness of the joint. The key advantages of our design over other joint actuation methods are its great strength combined with controllable compliance and minimal space requirements.

Robots have been recently used as valuable therapeutic devices in numerous studies (especially with children with developmental needs), but their role as more general support for therapists is less well studied. However, as robots become better integrated in therapeutic environments, they will also influence therapists; and if robots are designed correctly, they could positively influence therapists’ well-being. Understanding how robots could be used in such a way is especially important as therapists of autistic children (and therapists of mentally disabled people in general) have one of the highest risks of workplace burnout. This paper describes a series of studies conducted to understand therapists’ attitudes towards robotic support and to discover what is most needed in such devices; this paper also describes an experimental study of the feasibility of robots playing one of those roles. Through observational studies and a series of ten meetings, with a group of seven therapists of autism, a list of possible roles was created. In a larger questionnaire based study, therapists gave a ranking to various robot roles and functions (a child’s behaviour analyser and support in critical/dangerous situations were given the highest priority). Therapists also stated that they expect robots to help them in the workplace, help prepare documentation and make their work more systematic. In a Wizard-of-Oz type experimental study, a robot was used to play a role of “emotional mirror” with seven therapist-child pairs. Study participants stated that a robot was acceptable and was not disturbing, although most did not find it particularly useful. Our conclusions indicate that therapists want robots to play a larger role than just a therapeutic device, and such roles can be added to robots without disturbing sessions with clients.

The growing interest in the utilization of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) demands minimizing the costs of robot maintenance, where one of the main aspects relates to energy consumption. This manuscript presents a novel approach to create an energy consumption model for UAVs. The authors prove, based on experimentally collected data using a drone carrying various payloads, that Machine Learning (ML) algorithms allow to sufficiently accurately estimate a power signal. As opposed to the classical approach with mathematical modeling, the presented method does not require any knowledge about the drone’s construction, thus making it a universal tool. Calculated metrics show the Decision Tree is the most suitable algorithm among eight different ML methods due to its high energy prediction accuracy of at least 97.5% and a short learning time which was equal to 2 ms for the largest dataset.

This article presents a survey on hypermobile robots – a group of articulated mobile robots that typically comprise of several segments with powered wheels, tracks, or legs to propel the vehicle forward. Segments are connected by 2- or 3-degree-of-freedom (DOF) joints that may or may not be powered and provide better mobility as compared with regular mobile robots. The origins are analyzed and over 14 projects are compared in order to find the best methodology of designing and developing hypermobile robots.