Nikolaj Hindsbo - Soft Robotics

Background & Motivation

Pipelines are vital to the infrastructure of modern society - essential for oil, gas, water, and sewage systems around the world.
Limitations of traditional in-pipe robots: size, weight, and lack of fine manipulation.
Need for innovative soft robot designs to navigate complex pipe geometries.

Research Focus:

Studied anisotropic contact, buckling geometry, and surface area effects on locomotion.
Aimed to identify how leg design angles and notch introduction affected buckling (and thus, successful locomotion) in previous work.

The 3D printed legs were squeezed into the testing rig shown with rubber feet attached. The force gauge was manipulated via a hand crank on a sliding platform to horizontally move the specimen along the glass to capture forward and backwards motion forces.

Personal Contributions - Ansys Simulations and Physical Prototype Matching

Contrary to initial expectations, inducing outward buckling proved challenging. A modified leg design was ideated with Ansys. A demonstration of the inward buckling and ultimate success of the design can be seen in this video.

Ansys in-pipe squeezing simulations were also performed to achieve insight on predicting the anisotropic affect of different angled legs.

SoftRobotics_FinalReport.pdf