Matthew Borgatti has been working with soft robotics for years. His focus now is creating robots that are compatible with humans, simple and easy to manufacture. More than twenty million people suffering from peripheral neuropathy in the United States. Muscle weakness, loss of sensation and spastic movement reduce these patients' freedom and indpendence.
As part of the solution to cheaper and easier orthotics Borgatti and his team at Super-Releaser have developed soft robots with an eye on aiding motion. Their goal is to make orthotics cost less than a plane ticket, instead of more than a house.
This moonshot video demonstrates soft cuffs that would slip around an elbow or knee and assist or control movement. A self-contained air battery can be powered to open or close the limb.
Glaucus is the other more fascinating part of the video. Glaucus is a soft quadraped that walks using only two air inputs. Introducing pressure to the soft chambers causes the robot to move due to the geometry of the membranes inside the structure.
3d printing the molds for Glaucus means that the magic happens in the internal geometry of the part and doesn't require intricate assemblies of links and attachments. Instructions for building your own Glaucus are available on the Super-Releaser website, but they look to require the skills of an expert level maker.
Borgatti is doing amazing work here. This isn't the first time we've covered his work or soft robots in general here at ENGINEERING.com, but this is the first time that the technology has been successfully transferred to a medical application. Creating a partial exoskeleton takes elements of science fiction and wearable robotics to an incredible level.
Images courtesy SolveforX, https://www.solveforx.com/moonshot/5726146096267264