Dual Stiffness Tensegrity Platform for Resilient Robotics

Collision resilience is an important feature of robots deployed in unstructured and partially unpredictable environments. Herein, a novel dual stiffness (DS) tensegrity platform to integrate collision into robot body proposed. The proposed DS rigid during normal operation, but softens upon withstand the impact. behavior achieved by means strut that rigid, can buckle without breaking under high loads, thus preventing damage robot. Compression tests finite element method simulations show both struts tensegrities undergo substantial change with maximum load-bearing ratios up 10.5 5.74, respectively, before after buckling. These structures are integrated two types robots, drone rover, shown falls from 2 5 m, respectively. mechanical tunability system makes it suitable for impact attenuation wide range situations types.