IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2017 - 48
The Quest for Natural
Machine Motion
An Open Platform
to Fast-Prototype
Articulated Soft
Robots
©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/BRENDAN HUNTER
By cosimo Della Santina, cristina Piazza, Gian Maria Gasparri,
Manuel Bonilla, Manuel catalano, Manolo Garabini,
Giorgio Grioli, and antonio Bicchi
S
oft robots are one of the most significant recent
evolutions in robotics. They rely on compliant
physical structures purposefully designed to embody
desired characteristics. Since their introduction,
they have shown remarkable applicability in
overcoming their rigid counterparts in such areas as
interaction with humans, adaptability, energy efficiency, and
maximization of peak performance. Nonetheless, we believe
that research on novel soft robot applications is still slowed by
the difficulty in obtaining or developing a working soft robot
structure to explore novel applications.
In this article, we present the Natural Machine Motion
Initiative (NMMI), a modular open platform that aims to
provide the scientific community with tools for fast and
easy prototyping of articulated soft robots. Such a platform is composed of three main open hardware modules:
the Qbmoves variable-stiffness actuators (VSAs) to build
the main robotic structure, soft end effectors (EEs) to
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2016.2636366
Date of publication: 16 February 2017
48
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IEEE rOBOTIcS & aUTOMaTION MaGaZINE
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March 2017
interact with the world, and a pool of application-specific
add-ons. We also discuss many novel uses of the platform
to rapidly prototype (RP) and test new robotic structures
with original soft capabilities, and we propose NMMIbased experiments.
Many New Robotics Possibilities
Enabling a true integration of robots in human-populated
environments is one of the most ambitious long-term
goals of robotics research. Robot evolution in terms of
safety, intelligence, affordability, and social skills has been
impressive in the past decade and has brought several
robotic devices to market. However, making robots able to
safely interact with the public is hindered by the fact that
classical industrial robots, as stiff and heavy machines,
can generate dangerous and unstable interactions in
uncertain environments.
To overcome this limitation, and inspired by biological
actuation, so-called soft robotics was born [1], i.e., robot
development that embeds elastic elements with either fixed or
variable mechanical compliance. The first goal for soft robots
1070-9932/17©2017IEEE
http://www.ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/BRENDAN
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