Soft Robotics. Bio-inspired Antagonistic Stiffening

Abstract

Soft robotic structures might play a major role in the 4th industrial revolution. Researchers have successfully demonstrated advantages of soft robotics over traditional robots made of rigid links and joints in several application areas including manufacturing, healthcare and surgical interventions. However, soft robots have limited ability to exert larger forces when it comes to interaction with the environment, hence, change their stiffness on demand over a wide range. Stiffnesscontrollability can be achieved as a result of the equilibrium of an active force and a passive reaction force or of two active forces antagonistically collaborating. In this paper, we present a novel design paradigm for a fabric-based Variable Stiffness System and its potential applications.

An introductory review of robotically assisted surgical systems

“…37 Dexterity can be obtained with a suitable number of actuated degrees of freedom, or with an arm with an underactuated and soft continuum structure to avoid harm to the patient. 38 The slave robot design must be bio-inspired 39 and bio-compatible 40 with reference to the adoption of adequate structures and materials. Bio-nano components will be integrated into surgical robotic structures and instruments 41,42 Soft robots, due to their versatility, have the potential to provide solutions for applications that rigid robots are not able to satisfactorily solve, for example, in the field of surgery where they will play a key role also for their inherent safety.…”

Strengthening Effect of Flooding in 3d Printed Porous Soft Robotics Scaffolds

“…Soft robotics uses soft plastic filaments for producing robots with the capability of elastic transformability [4]. Scientists also use biomimetic science for developing the motioning and sensing ability of soft robots [5][6][7][8][9][10]. Totuk et al [11] studied biomimetic, and they mentioned that bio-inspired additive manufacturing leveled up and became 4D printing.…”

Hybrid fluidic actuation for a foam-based soft actuator

“…Researchers have designed and fabricated soft robots in a wide variety of shapes with infinite degrees of freedom, which can adapt to their surroundings using high-curvature bending and twisting capabilities [8], [9]. Due to their characteristics, these soft robots were applied, e.g., in the fields of abdominal minimally invasive surgery [10], [12]- [15], [30], cardiovascular interventions [16], [17] and collaborative industrial operations [18]- [20], [27].…”