The technological transition from soft machines to soft robots necessarily passes through the integration of soft electronics and sensors. This allows for the establishment of feedback control systems while preserving the softness of the robot embodiment. Multistable mechanical metamaterials are excellent building blocks of soft machines, as their nonlinear response can be tuned by design to accomplish several functions. In this work, we present the integration of soft capacitive sensors in a multistable mechanical metamaterial, to enable proprioceptive sensing of state changes. The metamaterial is a periodic arrangement of 4 bistable unit cells. Each unit cell has an integrated capacitive sensor. Both the metastructure and the sensors are made of soft materials (TPU) and are 3D printed. Our preliminary results show that the capacitance variation of the sensors can be linked to state transitions of the metamaterial, by capturing the nonlinear deformation.

翻译：从软体机器向软体机器人的技术转型必然需要集成软体电子器件与传感器。这能够在保持机器人本体柔顺性的同时建立反馈控制系统。多稳态机械超材料是软体机器的优异构建模块，其非线性响应可通过设计调整以实现多种功能。本研究提出在一种多稳态机械超材料中集成软电容传感器，以实现状态变化的本体感知。该超材料由4个双稳态单胞周期性排列构成，每个单胞均集成一个电容传感器。超结构与传感器均采用软材料（TPU）通过3D打印技术制备。初步实验结果表明，通过捕捉非线性变形，传感器电容变化可与超材料的状态跃迁建立关联。