Fig. 1: Fluidic sensing of the soft robot-environment interaction.
a Overview of the fluidic sensing methodology. Inflating a PneuNet actuator onto a rigid plate from a height h changes the pressure-volume response of the soft actuator, which can be characterized by three different fluidic sensing methods: pressurized air tank and solenoid valve (orange dashed line), pressure control (blue dashed line), and flow control (red dashed line). For clarity, the presented data is fitted based on measured results shown in Fig. S1. The snapshots represent the equilibrium state of the soft bending actuator with an input volume of 28.7 ml at h = 5, 15, 25, 35 and ∞ mm. Scale bar: 20 mm. b-d Calibrations between the height h and the equilibrium pressure Peq or total input volume at equilibrium Veq based on sensing with the three fluidic sensing methods (colors match sensing method). The dashed lines represent the linear fits of all the test data. e A soft gripper with four PneuNet actuators gripping a cylindrical object with a diameter D. f Calibration between the cylinder diameter D and the equilibrium pressure Peq of the soft gripper. The dashed line represents a linear fit of the test data with D = 40, 60, 80, 100 mm.
