Investigating Sensation Mechanics and Improving Actuation of the Soft Robotic Tongue and Ear from Simulation

Hepatic-based simulation plays a key role in designing and developing sensors and soft robotics for improving human-like robot interaction and sensing. For example, there is a huge demand for electronic tongues and ears in the food and defense industries for sound or air pressure detection and chemical and flavor analysis. The lack of availability of soft robots with human-like sensory features has motivated us to investigate, design, and simulate a human tongue's complex motions, including that of a human ear.<br/><br/>Human anatomy was studied in detail to modify the standard designs of the human tongue and the human ear. In the tongue model, adding embedded chambers at strategic locations was used to replicate various 3D motions (rolling, groove, twist, and elongation) of the human tongue necessary for improving the bio-chemical sensing capabilities. The FEM (Finite element method) simulations using ABAQUS software showed the relation between pressure and deformation range for various motions in a human tongue, including stress vs. strain relation for investigating the mechanical properties. Similarly, a study was conducted to test the mechanical properties of the human ear, and a load was applied on the ear's outer rim in a downward direction. The behavior of the ear was simulated under various loads, both compressive and tensile testing, to determine the stress vs. strain relation.