To achieve real-world functionality, robots must have the ability to carry out decision-making computations. However, soft robots stretch and therefore need a solution other than rigid computers. Examples of embedding computing capacity into soft robots currently include appending rigid printed circuit boards to the robot, integrating soft logic gates, and exploiting material responses for material-embedded computation. Although promising, these approaches introduce limitations such as rigidity, tethers, or low logic gate density. The field of stretchable electronics has sought to solve these challenges, but a complete pipeline for direct integration of single-board computers, microcontrollers, and other complex circuitry into soft robots has remained elusive. We present a generalized method to translate any complex two-layer circuit into a soft, stretchable form. This enabled the creation of stretchable single-board microcontrollers (including Arduinos) and other commercial circuits (including SparkFun circuits), without design simplifications. As demonstrations of the method’s utility, we embedded highly stretchable (>300% strain) Arduino Pro Minis into the bodies of multiple soft robots. This makes use of otherwise inert structural material, fulfilling the promise of the stretchable electronic field to integrate state-of-the-art computational power into robust, stretchable systems during active use.

中文翻译：

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嵌入软体机器人中的可伸缩 Arduino


为了实现现实世界的功能，机器人必须具有执行决策计算的能力。然而，软体机器人会伸展，因此需要一种不同于刚性计算机的解决方案。目前将计算能力嵌入软机器人的示例包括将刚性印刷电路板附加到机器人、集成软逻辑门以及利用材料响应进行材料嵌入计算。尽管很有前途，但这些方法引入了一些限制，例如刚性、系绳或低逻辑门密度。可拉伸电子领域一直在寻求解决这些挑战，但将单板计算机、微控制器和其他复杂电路直接集成到软机器人中的完整管道仍然难以捉摸。我们提出了一种通用方法，可以将任何复杂的两层电路转换为柔软的、可拉伸的形式。这使得无需简化设计即可创建可拉伸的单板微控制器（包括 Arduinos）和其他商业电路（包括 SparkFun 电路）。为了证明该方法的实用性，我们将高度可拉伸（>300% 应变）的 Arduino Pro Mini 嵌入到多个软体机器人的体内。它利用了原本惰性的结构材料，实现了可拉伸电子场的承诺，即在积极使用期间将最先进的计算能力集成到坚固、可拉伸的系统中。