A small toy sized robot with a soft skin that is robust to playful physical interaction.

The upper body, including the arms, pelvis, chest, and back has soft, 3D printed air-filled modules connected to pressure sensors to sense contact and provide protection to the child and robot while interacting. These soft skin modules cover the underlying actuators and the rigid 3D printed frame with printed bearings.

Each arm has four joints: two in the shoulder,one elbow joint, and one wrist joint. The torso has four serial vertebral joints with one end connected to the middle of thepelvis and the other end to the shoulder joints.  The arm has a 3 DOF shoulder joint and a 1 DOF elbow joint, which can perform grasping and hugging motions. The torso has a 2 DOF pitch-yaw joint to make motions like crouching or arm swinging. 

Soft upper body robot

The upper body, including the arms, pelvis, chest, and back has soft, 3D printed air-filled modules connected to pressure sensors to sense contact and provide protection to the child and robot while interacting. These soft skin modules cover the underlying actuators and the rigid 3D printed frame with printed bearings.Each arm has four joints: two in the shoulder,one elbow joint, and one wrist joint. The torso has four serial vertebral joints with one end connected to the middle of thepelvis and the other end to the shoulder joints. &nbsp;The arm has a 3 DOF shoulder joint and a 1 DOF elbow joint, which can perform grasping and hugging motions. The torso has a 2 DOF pitch-yaw joint to make motions like crouching or arm swinging.&nbsp;Soft skinThe robot has a 3D printed soft skin module &nbsp;which has a flexible, contact-sensing air-filled cavity. This helps to absorb unexpected impacts, reducing the likelihood of human injury and actuator damage. It also provides contact force feedback via a pressure sensor connected to the air-filled cavity. These modules give the robot the ability to sense contact forces on its various links.&nbsp;The robot’s upper body contains eight soft skin modules: one at each hand, one &nbsp;on each upper arm, two on the chest, one at the waist, and one on the back. These softskin modules each include a soft, air-filled &nbsp;cavity. Each module’s cavity is enclosed by a 1.5mm thick membrane of rubber-like material. Each module consists of an inner rigid frame which provides structural support and servo mounting points. Inside of the cavity is a rigid stick with a rubber-like ball on the end which prevents the module from being deflated to a shape from which it can not return. This module attaches directly to the end of &nbsp;a Dynamixel MX-28. &nbsp;FrameUnderneath the soft skin, a rigid frame links the servos together. This frame also supports servo output shafts under loads experienced during motion and physical contact. &nbsp;Modular 3D printed bearings are used to constrain motion and distribute loads.ManufacturingThe modules are 3D printed using a Stratasys Objet 260 Connex multimaterial 3D printer, which can print a single part with both rigid and flexible features. The rigid materials used are VeroWhitePlus and VeroClear. The flexible rubber-like material is TangoPlus. &nbsp;The method used to 3D print the soft skin modules is PolyJet printin. This method relies on a gel-like material to support overhanging part geometry as it prints each layer. This support material is UV-cured while printing, but can be broken up and removed post-print using a pressure washer. Because of that, cavities, must be printed with an opening through which this support material can be removed. A corresponding cap for each module is also printed to seal the cavity once clean.

Describes the design and implementation of the 3D printed air-filled modules and the 3D printed bearings. Reports the implementation details and experimental results of an interactive “grab and move” interface. Conclusions and future work are discussed.

Design of a Soft Upper Body Robot for Physical Human-Robot Interaction.

Describes an overview of the concept, including sensing methodologies and a control framework for safe interaction. Discusses the design and fabrication of the proposed 3D soft skin module. Presents experiments conducted to demonstrate the characteristics of the soft skin module and pressure feedbac

3D Printed Soft Skin for Safe Human-Robot Interaction.

Describes the motivation of this research and reports the details of the system developed for measuring the hugging power of a child. Presents the design of the study with children and the obtained results. Lastly, the conclusions and future work are discussed.

Study of Children’s Hugging for Interactive Robot Design.

Height

Width

Depth

Weight

Degrees of freedom (DOF)

Pressure sensor

Controller

Servo's

Manufacturing technique

Materials

A small toy sized robot with a soft skin that is robust to playful physical interaction.

Height	21.8	cm
Width	31	cm
Depth	24.6	cm
Weight	2.2	kg
Degrees of freedom (DOF)	3	DOF shoulder joint
	61	DOF elbow joint