Modelling and simulation of soft robotic human tongue with improved motion

Abstract

There is a huge demand for electronic tongues in the food and pharmaceutical industries for chemical detection and flavor analysis. The lack of availability of robots with electronic tongues has motivated us to investigate, design, and simulate a human tongue’s complex motions. Human anatomy was studied in detail to modify the standard design of the human tongue, with the addition of 32 embedded chambers at strategic locations, to replicate various 3D motions (rolling, groove, twist, and elongation) of the human tongue necessary for improving the biochemical sensing capabilities. The FEM (Finite element method) simulations showed the relation between pressure and deformation range for various kinds of motions in a human tongue, including the mechanical properties from the stress versus strain response.