Novel Bending and Helical Extensile/Contractile Pneumatic Artificial Muscles Inspired by Elephant Trunk

Guan, Qinghua; Sun, Jian; Liu, Yanju; Wereley, Norman M.; Leng, Jinsong

doi:10.1089/soro.2019.0079

Cited by 108 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Sorting and logistics robots will also be more capable with the help of the variable stiffness of the proposed sensor when they are dealing with various goods. The proposed sensor could also be integrated in pneumatic robotic manipulators [41,42] systems. This variable soft sensor could improve their sensibility to different types of objects in different application occasions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adjustable Compliance Soft Sensor via an Elastically Inflatable Fluidic Dome

Zhang

Kow

Jones

et al. 2021

Sensors

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Soft sensors are essential for robotic systems to safely interact with humans and the environment. Although significant research has been carried out in the field of soft tactile sensing, most of these sensors are restricted to a predefined geometry and a fixed measurement range, hence limiting their application. This paper introduces a novel approach to soft sensing by proposing a soft load-sensing unit with an adjustable mechanical compliance achieved using an elastically inflatable fluidic dome. The sensor consists of a three-dimensional Hall-effect sensor, above which is a magnet whose movement is modulated by an intermediate elastomeric dome structure. Sensor configurations were designed and fabricated using three different silicone rubbers to cover ‘00–10’ and ‘20A’ durometer shore hardness scales. We demonstrated that the compliance of the sensor could be dynamically tuned by changing the internal pressure of the inflatable fluidic dome in all configurations. We performed finite element simulations to determine the reaction force of the sensor under load as well as the stresses within the internal structural behavior, which are not possible to capture experimentally. The proposed soft sensor has the potential to be readily adapted for use in various soft robotic applications of differing size, compliance range, and safety requirements.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adjustable Compliance Soft Sensor via an Elastically Inflatable Fluidic Dome

Zhang

Kow

Jones

et al. 2021

Sensors

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Elastomers (Ecoflex [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], Dragon Skin [17], Sylgard 184 [18,19], other [20][21][22][23][24][25]), fabric [15,26,27], Filaflex [28], hydrogels [29], Diels-Alder polymer [30], polypropylene [31], FC72 fluid [24], ethanol [16], paper [32], urethane [27], gelatin-based biogel [33] Phase Change Material Elastomer Composite (PCMEC) Elastomers [34][35][36], phase change material (wax [35], ethanol [34])…”

Section: Fluidic Chambermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The pneumatic or hydraulic pressure commonly ranges between 0.2 bar and 1 bar, depending mainly on the actuator structural stiffness (material stiffness, geometry and dimensions), and is limited by the risk of bursting or leakage. Several works reported input pressures up to 3 bar [22,31]. The pressure lines in congestion remain an important limitation of fluidic chamber actuators in terms of miniaturization and tetherability.…”

Section: Soft Isotropic Transducersmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Programmable Stimuli-Responsive Actuators for Complex Motions in Soft Robotics: Concept, Design and Challenges

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During the last years, great progress was made in material science in terms of concept, design and fabrication of new composite materials with conferred properties and desired functionalities. The scientific community paid particular interest to active soft materials, such as soft actuators, for their potential as transducers responding to various stimuli aiming to produce mechanical work. Inspired by this, materials engineers today are developing multidisciplinary approaches to produce new active matters, focusing on the kinematics allowed by the material itself more than on the possibilities offered by its design. Traditionally, more complex motions beyond pure elongation and bending are addressed by the robotics community. The present review targets encompassing and rationalizing a framework which will help a wider scientific audience to understand, sort and design future soft actuators and methods enabling complex motions. Special attention is devoted to recent progress in developing innovative stimulus-responsive materials and approaches for complex motion programming for soft robotics. In this context, a challenging overview of the new materials as well as their classification and comparison (performances and characteristics) are proposed. In addition, the great potential of soft transducers are outlined in terms of kinematic capabilities, illustrated by the related application. Guidelines are provided to design actuators and to integrate asymmetry enabling motions along any of the six basic degrees of freedom (translations and rotations), and strategies towards the programming of more complex motions are discussed. As a final note, a series of manufacturing methods are described and compared, from molding to 3D and 4D printing. The review ends with a Perspectives section, from material science and microrobotic points of view, on the soft materials’ future and close future challenges to be overcome.

show abstract

“…Their inherent compliance, providing an opportunity to overcome the safety concerns and ergonomic limitations that are typical of rigid-bodied robots. The most common soft robotic actuators are flexible fluidic actuators (FFAs) [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43], shape memory materials (SMMs), and electroactive polymers (EAPs) [26,27,32,44]. Most FFAs are driven by air pressure which is known as a pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Wearable Soft Fabric Sleeve for Upper Limb Augmentation

Hoang

Bussu

et al. 2021

Sensors

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Soft actuators (SAs) have been used in many compliant robotic structure and wearable devices, due to their safe interaction with the wearers. Despite advances, the capability of current SAs is limited by scalability, high hysteresis, and slow responses. In this paper, a new class of soft, scalable, and high-aspect ratio fiber-reinforced hydraulic SAs is introduced. The new SA uses a simple fabrication process of insertion where a hollow elastic rubber tube is directly inserted into a constrained hollow coil, eliminating the need for the manual wrapping of an inextensible fiber around a long elastic structure. To provide high adaptation to the user skin for wearable applications, the new SAs are integrated into flexible fabrics to form a wearable fabric sleeve. To monitor the SA elongation, a soft liquid metal-based fabric piezoresistive sensor is also developed. To capture the nonlinear hysteresis of the SA, a novel asymmetric hysteresis model which only requires five model parameters in its structure is developed and experimentally validated. The new SAs-driven wearable robotic sleeve is scalable, highly flexible, and lightweight. It can also produce a large amount of force of around 23 N per muscle at around 30% elongation, to provide useful assistance to the human upper limbs. Experimental results show that the soft fabric sleeve can augment a user’s performance when working against a load, evidenced by a significant reduction on the muscular effort, as monitored by electromyogram (EMG) signals. The performance of the developed SAs, soft fabric sleeve, soft liquid metal fabric sensor, and nonlinear hysteresis model reveal that they can effectively modulate the level of assistance for the wearer. The new technologies obtained from this work can be potentially implemented in emerging assistive applications, such as rehabilitation, defense, and industry.

show abstract

Novel Bending and Helical Extensile/Contractile Pneumatic Artificial Muscles Inspired by Elephant Trunk

Cited by 108 publications

References 34 publications

Adjustable Compliance Soft Sensor via an Elastically Inflatable Fluidic Dome

Adjustable Compliance Soft Sensor via an Elastically Inflatable Fluidic Dome

Programmable Stimuli-Responsive Actuators for Complex Motions in Soft Robotics: Concept, Design and Challenges

A Wearable Soft Fabric Sleeve for Upper Limb Augmentation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About