Matthew Fernandez
MIT Department: Mechanical Engineering
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Kaitlyn Becker
Research Supervisor: Samuel Gollob
Undergraduate Institution: Georgia Institute of Technology
Hometown: Tampa, Florida
Website: LinkedIn
Biography
Matthew Fernandez is a rising senior Mechanical Engineering student from the Georgia Institute of Technology. His passions lie in bio-inspired and multi-modal robotics targeting extreme environment locomotion and manipulation capabilities. Previously, Matthew has experience developing marine robotic systems for the Arctic and Antarctica and moved on to develop Martian robotic systems at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He currently engages in research at Georgia Tech’s Complex Rheology and Biomechanics lab under Prof. Daniel Goldman, where he has worked on developing mechanically intelligent limbed and limbless systems capable of open-loop locomotion through complex obstacles. Currently, he leads his own project regarding limbless locomotion in cluttered underwater environments, as well as amphibious robotic capability. After his undergraduate degree, Matthew plans to pursue graduate school in these fields of bio-inspired and multi-modal works.
Abstract
Design of a Propellant-Powered Pneumatic Source for Soft Robots
Matthew Fernandez1, Samuel Gollob2 and Kaitlyn Becker2
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
2Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Soft robotics has opened a new space of actuation and control possibilities, both in manipulation and locomotion. Despite this flexibility, these actuation methods often turn out to be the bottleneck in the development of energy-efficient and lightweight untethered soft-robotic systems. Existing soft actuation methods often require pumps or compressors resulting in significant sacrifice in power consumption, mass, and volume. This has resulted in the pursuit towards monopropellant systems, in this case the catalyzed decomposition of hydrogen peroxide to rapidly produce high-pressure oxygen, despite its difficulty in control and packaging. In this work, we propose a compact actuator using a combination of relative pressures from the reacted gas and the elasticity of a secondary fuel reservoir to create a low-energy refuel system, all precisely controlled by a small solenoid. This pressure system allows the absence of a pump, granting a uniquely energy-dense actuator while maintaining low mass. We have characterized the control of this actuation strategy, quantifying the energy benefit in this elastic membrane refuel system. Additionally, we have adapted this actuator to multiple robotic platforms, both locomotion and manipulation, proving its broad range of efficacy. This has resulted in a compact, lightweight actuator applicable to most any soft robotic platform.
