FlowIO Taps an Adafruit Feather Sense for Pneumatic Control of Soft Robots

An MIT Media Lab team designed FlowIO as a modular, miniature pneumatics development platform for control, actuation, and sensing of soft robots and programmable materials.

FlowIO features a primary module with five pneumatic ports and provides a series of pneumatic actions, including inflation, vacuum, release, pressure hold, pressure sense, and variable flow rate. Its main module is also equipped with seven normally-closed solenoid valves in a manifold configuration, two for inlet and outlet, and five for the pneumatic I/O ports. Functions are controlled via an Adafruit Feather Sense (nrf52840) with Bluetooth Low Energy capabilities and several sensors, like a 9-DoF IMU, altimeter, and light sensor.

The main driver PCB packs a magnetic connector with four pins for connection to the pump module, a power button with a programmable auto-off timer, and a 14-pin GPIO header with I2C, SPI, UART, and analog I/O pins. There's a 500mAh LiPo battery on the opposite side for power, which is rechargeable via a USB port. The FlowIO system contains various expansion modules for increased functionality that connect using the main module’s GPIO header or over Bluetooth, which includes a pump that can provide different pressures and flow rates. It has its own LiPo battery and driver board housed in a snap-fit 3D printed enclosure as well.

The FlowIO platform can be used with accessories to make it more versatile, such as a strap that allows the system to be used as a wearable for assistive applications. The engineers have even designed a Lego-compatible enclosure for use in Lego projects. They’ve uploaded the enclosure files onto the FlowIO website; users can tailor them to suit specific projects. Interestingly, the team has developed a web-based GUI that runs on Google Chrome so that projects can be accessed from anywhere. They’ve also developed multiple APIs that are compatible with Arduino, JavaScript, and Python.