3D-Printed Soft Pneumatic Robotic Digit Based on Parametric Kinematic Model for Finger Action Mimicking

Zhao, Shumi; Wang, Ziwen; Lei, Yisong; Zhang, Jie; Li, Yuyao; Sun, Zeji; Gong, Zidan

doi:10.3390/polym14142786

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Our proposed rehabilitation glove, which mainly focuses on providing a simple, safe, personalized, lightweight and portable solution, therefore chooses commercially available curved−bellows pneumatic actuators, micro air pumps, and direct−acting solenoid valves. Among them, a soft−bellows pneumatic actuator with a chamber can provide smooth and flexible bending motion [55], which meets the design requirements of this paper. The flexible pneumatic actuator is fixed on the outer glove by…”

Section: Pneumatic Actuator Modulementioning

confidence: 67%

Personalized and Safe Soft Glove for Rehabilitation Training

Meng,

Liu,

et al. 2023

Electronics

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Traditional hand rehabilitation devices present a challenge in providing personalized training that can lead to finger movements exceeding the safe range, resulting in secondary injuries. To address this issue, we introduce a soft rehabilitation training glove with the function of safety and personalization, which can allow patients to select training modes based on rehabilitation and provide real-time monitoring, as well as feedback on finger movement data. The inner glove is equipped with bending sensors to access the maximum/minimum angle of finger movement and to provide data for the safety of rehabilitation training. The outer glove contains flexible drivers, which can drive fingers for different modes of rehabilitation training. As a result, the rehabilitation glove can drive five fingers to achieve maximum extension/flexion angles of 15.65°/85.97°, 15.34°/89.53°, 16.78°/94.27°, 15.59°/88.82°, and 16.73°/88.65°, from thumb to little finger, respectively, and the rehabilitation training frequency can reach six times per minute. The safety evaluation result indicated an error within ±6.5° of the target-motion threshold. The reliability assessment yielded a high-intra-class correlation coefficient value (0.7763–0.9996). Hence, the rehabilitation glove can achieve targeted improvement in hand function while ensuring safety.

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Section: Pneumatic Actuator Modulementioning

confidence: 67%

Personalized and Safe Soft Glove for Rehabilitation Training

Meng,

Liu,

et al. 2023

Electronics

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“…They employed integrated tactile sensors alongside machine learning algorithms to differentiate accurate renditions of a song from incorrect ones. In a similar vein, researchers [5] proposed a soft pneumatic robotic digit comprising pneumatic bellows actuators, mimicking biological joints. Their study focused on achieving specific finger movements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental investigation on enhancement in pure axial deformation of soft pneumatic actuator (SPA) with cap ring reinforcement

Mehta,

Chauhan,

Sanghvi

et al. 2024

Eng. Res. Express

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Bio-inspired soft-robots are nowadays found their place in many applications due to its flexibility, compliance and adaptivity to unstructured environment. The main intricate part of such bio-inspired soft robots are soft pneumatic actuators (SPA) which replicate or mimic the limbs and muscles. The soft actuators are pneumatically actuated and provide bending motion in most cases. However, many engineering and medical applications need axially expanding soft pneumatic actuators to deal with delicate objects. Various studies have put forward designs for SPA with axial deformation, but the majority of them have limited axial deformation, constraining motion and less overall efficacy which limit the scope of utilization. The common practice to enhance the axial deformation of SPA is by incorporating directionally customized reinforcement using fibres or by other means like yarns, fabrics, etc. These types of reinforcements are generally embedded to SPA during fabrication and may not have capability for any correction or modification later on hence lack the customization. This paper presents a novel method of radial reinforcement for the enhancement of axial deformation of SPAs with provision of customization. The present study aims to enhance and/or customize the axial deformation of SPA by incorporating external and detachable reinforcement in the form of annulus shaped cap ring. The investigation encompasses the design and attachment of four distinct cap ring geometries to SPA at different locations. Experimental results affirm that cap ring reinforcement bolster the radial stiffness, curbing lateral deformation while permitting axial deformation of soft pneumatic actuators. Out of 64 distinct configurations, the one with full reinforcement, featuring four cap rings of maximum size, yields a remarkable 169% increase in pure axial deformation compared to unreinforced cases. It is also observed that by varying the number and placement locations of cap rings the pure axial deformation can be customized. This novel insight not only propels soft pneumatic actuation technology but also heralds prospects for highly agile and versatile robotic systems which can be used in medical, prosthetics, pharmaceutical and other industries.

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“…Another approach is to fabricate a new type of grasping tools using inherently compliant materials. Soft pneumatic elastomer actuators made of silicone elastomeric materials with low Young’s modulus can perform better in the safe interaction with delicate and fragile objects than the instruments with rigid structures due to their inherent compliance [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ], which makes them well-suited to grip soft tissues. These deformable materials permit the manipulation of delicate tissues to be achieved by providing safe adaptable gripping.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Preliminary Study on Grip-Induced Nerve Damage Caused by a Soft Pneumatic Elastomeric Gripper

et al. 2022

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Forceps, clamps, and haemostats are essential surgical tools required for all surgical interventions. While they are widely used to grasp, hold, and manipulate soft tissue, their metallic rigid structure may cause tissue damage due to the potential risk of applying excessive gripping forces. Soft pneumatic surgical grippers fabricated by silicone elastomeric materials with low Young’s modulus may offer a promising solution to minimize this unintentional damage due to their inherent excellent compliance and compressibility. The goal of this work is to evaluate and compare the grip-induced nerve damage caused by the soft pneumatic elastomeric gripper and conventional haemostats during surgical manipulation. Twenty-four Wistar rats (male, seven weeks) are subjected to sciatic nerve compression (right hind limb) using the soft pneumatic elastomer gripper and haemostats. A histopathological analysis is conducted at different time-points (Day 0, Day 3, Day 7 and Day 13) after the nerve compression to examine the morphological tissue changes between the rats in the ‘soft gripper’ group and the ‘haemostats’ group. A free walking analysis is also performed to examine the walking function of the rats after recovery from different time points. Comparing the rigid haemostats and soft gripper groups, there is a visible difference in the degree of axonal vacuolar degeneration between the groups, which could suggest the presence of substantial nerve damage in the ‘haemostats’ group. The rats in the haemostats group exhibited reduced right hind paw pressure and paw size after the nerve compression. It shows that the rats tend not to exert more force on the affected right hind limb in the haemostats group compared to the soft gripper group. In addition, the stance duration was reduced in the injured right hind limb compared to the normal left hind limb in the haemostats group. These observations show that the soft pneumatic surgical gripper made of silicone elastomeric materials might reduce the severity of grip-induced damage by providing a safe compliant grip compared to the conventional haemostats. The soft pneumatic elastomer gripper could complement the current surgical gripping tool in delicate tissue manipulation.

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3D-Printed Soft Pneumatic Robotic Digit Based on Parametric Kinematic Model for Finger Action Mimicking

Cited by 4 publications

References 68 publications

Personalized and Safe Soft Glove for Rehabilitation Training

Personalized and Safe Soft Glove for Rehabilitation Training

Experimental investigation on enhancement in pure axial deformation of soft pneumatic actuator (SPA) with cap ring reinforcement

A Preliminary Study on Grip-Induced Nerve Damage Caused by a Soft Pneumatic Elastomeric Gripper

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