IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2021 - 96

the soft robotic swab with
a collecting segment taper
More than 90% of the
angle b = 30° and a bending actuator taper angle a
tested subjects said that
= 9°. We then explored
the interaction of the soft
the soft robotic swab
robot with the throat
through both FE simulawould not reduce comfort
tions and experimental
conditions.
compared with the
For the FE simulations,
we considered the colcotton swab.
lecting segment touching
a human palatoglossal
arch [the blue section in
Figure 6(a)]. The material was modeled as a linear elastic
material with Young's modulus of 1.3 MPa, which is close
to the modulus of palatoglossal arch tissue while the mouth
is open [21], [23]. The collecting segment [Figure 6(a),
green part] was placed in front of the palatoglossal arch

11

Pressure (kPa)

10
90

9
8

80

7
6

70

5
60
10

15

20
25
30
Taper Angle, β (°)
(a)

35

4

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
10

β = 30°

Twisting Angle (°)
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

Pressure (kPa)

Elongating Displacement (mm)

100

model and actuated with pressure from 0 to 100 kPa. Figure 6(a) indicates that, with increasing pneumatic pressure,
the collecting segment elongates and slips down along the
palatoglossal arch, generating a scraping motion on the
surface. The stress distribution of this scraping is displayed in Figure 6(a).
Then, we explored the scraping area of the soft robotic
swab via frustrated total internal reflection (FTIR) [24] on a
translucent acrylic plate. Figure 6(b) depicts the three working stages. First, the hemispheric tip scraped down on the
plate surface when inflating the collecting segment ( P1 =
80 kPa). Second, the collecting segment released, and the
bending actuator was inflated to move the sampling area
horizontally. Third, the collecting segment was inflated
again to repeat the collecting motion. By calculating the
white pixel numbers of the binary processed FTIR images,
the scrape area of the soft robotic swab is enlarged from
122 (no bending) to 218 mm2 (with bending). More details
of the whole process are available in the second section of
the supplementary video.

15

20
25
30
Taper Angle, β (°)
(b)

Elongation

Twisting

35
(c)

Exp

10

Twisting Angle (°)

Elongating Displacement (mm)

P=0
25
FEA

5

0

0

20

40
60
80
Pressure (kPa)

100

(d)

P = 80 kPa

Elongation
Exp

20

FEA

15
10
Twisting
5
0

0

20

40
60
80
Pressure (kPa)
(e)

100
(f)

Figure 5. Modeling the effects of the collecting segment taper angle on elongating and twisting. (a) The numerical results illustrating
the elongation as a function of the taper angle ( b ) and input pressure ( P1 ). (b) The numerical results illustrating the twisting angle
as a function of the taper angle ( b ) and input pressure ( P1 ). The front and top views present good structural agreement between
the simulated (c) and real experimental (f) collecting segment with a taper angle b = 30° when actuated by pneumatic pressure
P1 ranging from 0 to 80 kPa. (d) Elongation and (e) twisting angle comparisons show good agreement between the simulation and
experimental results of the collecting segment with taper angle b = 30°. See the first section of the supplementary video for more
motion details. Exp: experimental; FEA: finite element analysis.

96

*

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

*

MARCH 2021



IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2021

Contents
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2021 - Cover1
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