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Soft pneumatic actuators are widely used for achieving sophisticated motions. However, to achieve extending, bending, bending-twisting and winding in a class of actuator is challenging. Here, we propose a programmable design to enable soft actuators to execute such complex motions. These motions are mainly owing to adjusting structure parameters, the position and angle of the elastic layer and the strain limiting layer. In addition, various deformation modes of actuators are demonstrated by our prototypes. By tuning the structure parameters, the deformation of actuators is explored and becomes more sophisticated and dexterous. Moreover, winding actuator shows a more stable grasping performance, which can grasp objects of different shapes and weights. We further demonstrate that by combining different forms of soft actuators, crawling soft robots with different functions can be developed. This programmable design method guides the fabrication of actuators and robots, making them promising candidates for more complex motions and new and innovative applications.

The high flexibility and adaptability of the soft actuator have attracted wide attention. However, under the stimulation of the external environment, the complex and controllable movement of materials remain a challenge. In this work, we make a bilayer composite film simply and quickly by depositing silicone rubber (Ecoflex00-30) on the side of the plant parchment. It spontaneously controls deformation and responds sensitively in the water. This bilayer composite film exhibits a good stable actuation effect and reversibility in a humid environment or in water. We cut the strips of plant parchment into different fiber directions and control the lateral gradient in the thickness direction to achieve complex and controllable motion (bending, S-shaped, -shaped and spiral). Inspired by the plant tendrils, we design and built a soft gripper that can achieve 30 times its own weight in the water, demonstrating promising bioinspired applications.

Aiming at the problem of lack of humanoid characteristics of the current bionic robotic arm, a bionic robotic arm with anthropomorphic characteristics is designed. Based on ergonomic principles and kinematics analysis, the system design of R Y R P R R -R P -R R R P structure was determined. The motion control of the 23 DOF (degree of freedom) of the entire arm is realized with 10 steering gears. Through the three-dimensional modeling, the structure of the arm’s mechanism components is made and the virtual simulation of the system is carried out. It was found that the motion space of the arm covered the commonly used work space of the human arm. The components are printed by 3D printing technology and are assembled, which the hardware and software of the control system are carried out. Operator’s arm color, depth image and bones are got by Kinect and the space vector method is used to calculate the joint angle data when the human arm moves. By setting communication with micro-controller, Arduino, by serial port, remote synchronization control of humanoid manipulator with gestural body language is achieved. The humanoid experiment of bionic robotic arm and human arm was carried out to finish the humanoid motion control of arm joint and the grasping, holding and handling of the object, which verified the rationality and feasibility of the system design. The bionic robotic arm has the characteristics of smart structure, convenient control, flexible movement, good human nature and low cost, and has important reference value for carrying out research on human bionics, medical prostheses and special environment teleoperation arms.

Inspired by the mechanism of the predatory action of the flytrap, a single soft airbag shape-driven manipulator is proposed. Base on the analysis of the movement mechanism of the flytrap and the geometric structure of the manipulator, through the expansion control of a single sphere elastic airbag and the passive contraction of elastic tendons, the opening action and closing action of different angles of the manipulator is achieved. As a further extension, through the control of the elastic airbag with different shapes, the shape actuators with different action trajectories is completed. By combining a long elastic airbag with a soft flexible spring, a soft bionic arm is completed, which can achieve contractile motion on a linear path. The experimental system was built, and the grabbing experiments of two-claw soft manipulator and three-claw soft manipulator were completed by low cost common industrial materials, which verified the feasibility of the scheme. The 3D printing technique has been used to implement the spiny bionic structure of the flytrap, which further improves the grabbing ability of the soft manipulator to different shape objects. The soft manipulator can achieve the grasping and lifting of an object with 10-15 times the weight of its own.

Inspired by the S winding movement of snakes in nature, and based on the analysis of the movement principle of snakes, the design of a kind of bionic snake robot driven by single motor is proposed. Its core mechanism consists of a spatial helix structure projected on the plane as a transverse wave and a series of articulated link clusters with touch feet (scale-like). The spiral motion of helical structure can be realized by single motor energy supply, and then the transverse wave motion of the link cluster is driven, and the snake's curve bionic motion is realized. Based on virtual prototyping technology, the motion simulation of different shaped touch feet structure is carried out. 3D printing technology is used to produce a prototype. A series of experiments are designed to compare the forward and backward motion of snake robot with different shaped touch feet. The experimental results show that the curved and oblique contact feet can make the bionic robot snake have high speed, verifying the feasibility and effectiveness of the design. This study aims to provide a new pattern of motion for the research of bionic snake robot.

Inspired by the physiological structure and the movement mechanism of the peristaltic organism, a soft peristaltic robot with a bionic foot controlled by a single elastic gasbag is proposed. The robot is easy to control and works efficiently, and its manufacturing cost is low. The structure design and motion mechanism of the soft robot are given. With the help of the ordinary long strip rubber balloon and automatically shrinking spring ring, the robot can complete active extension and passive contraction of the straight motion . Using pneumatic actuators to expand and stretch, the bionic foot is anchored on the contact surface, and then shrinking to complete the creep process. By comparing the influence of bionic foot of industrial clay and 3D printing PLA material on the mobile efficiency, the creeping motion experiments of robots of different sizes are completed. Through analyzing the relationship among the different diameter and the bionic foot materials and the velocity, it is verified that the scheme can be continued and the optimal parameters of the high efficient motion of the soft robot can be obtained. Thus the method is proved to be efficient.

In this paper, some improvements in parametric curve interpolation algorithm for non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) is proposed, the new algorithm can generate smooth and jerk-limited acceleration/deceleration feedrate profile. In order to avoid sudden change of velocity and achieve high machining quality around the corners with large curvature, velocity will be reduced before arriving the corners, where the chord errors are larger than limited value. More importantly, the computation of the length of NURBS curve in off-line process or real-time machining will be discarded, which is considered as an indispensable procedure in NURBS interpolation algorithm. Also some improvements are given in this paper to estimate the values of u. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed interpolator for machine curved paths.

Concerning the research of intellectual capital value increasing, Thomas A. Stewart and Dave Ulrich, two American scholars, have put forward their theories. Based on the comparing of the advantages and disadvantages of the two theories, this article brought forward the "5-E" model which help analyze the knowledge-based enterprise, analyze its contents and some practical problems we must pay attention to.

The world of videoconferencing has begun expanding to H.323 (IP) because this standard enables mass deployment of lower cost, desktop videoconferencing systems. As desktop videoconferencing becomes more popular, users are demanding that IT organizations offer this capability across the company-wide network. The standard has since been updated for networked multimedia broadcasting. However, due to latency and bandwidth issues inherent in IP networks, the H.323's potential for videoconferencing has not been realized. With the increasing adoption of IP networks and IP multimedia technology, users are looking forward to the time when they can drop expensive ISDN connections altogether and move voice, video, and data over to IP networks. Until that happens, IT managers must find a videoconferencing platform that delivers the best quality possible today while maintaining compatibility with tomorrow's IP-based systems. This paper outlines the solutions and technology choices available today, and explains how to design a future-proof videoconferencing solution as IP continues to evolve.