Trunk-like Soft Actuator: Design, Modeling, and Experiments

Bao, Guanjun; Chen, Lingfeng; Zhang, Yaqi; Cai, Shibo; Xu, Fang; Yang, Qinghua; Zhang, Libin

doi:10.1017/s0263574719001012

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…1 As an important part of soft robots, soft actuators have various driving methods, such as electroactive polymers, [2][3][4][5] shape memory alloys, 6, 7 hydrogels 8 and magnetorheological materials. 9 After various stimuli, such as electric charge, [3][4][5][6][7] chemical reaction 10,11 and pressurized fluid, [12][13][14][15][16] the actuator deforms to drive the robot. Most soft actuators are driven by pressurized fluid, which is simpler than other driving methods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Experiments of Pneumatic Soft Actuators

Cheng

Zhang

et al. 2021

Robotica

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SUMMARY The soft actuator is made of superelastic material and embedded flexible material. In this paper, a kind of soft tube was designed and used to assemble two kinds of pneumatic soft actuators. The experiment and finite element analysis are used to comprehensively analyze and describe the bending, elongation, and torsion deformation of the soft actuator. The results show that the two soft actuators have the best actuation performance when the inner diameter of the soft tube is 4 mm. In addition, when the twisting pitch of the torsional actuator is 24 mm, its torsional performance is optimized. Finally, a device that can be used in the production line was assembled by utilizing those soft actuators, and some operation tasks were completed. This experiment provides some insights for the development of soft actuators with more complex motions in the future.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Experiments of Pneumatic Soft Actuators

Cheng

Zhang

et al. 2021

Robotica

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“…Tufts University has put forward a design and manufacturing method to create a motor tendon-actuated soft foam robot [6]. The Zhejiang University of Technology has presented a pneumatic trunk-like soft actuator, adjusting the stiffness and realizing the omni-directional bending motion [7]. Common soft actuators are designed as monolithic structures from soft materials, such as silicone rubbers, electroactive polymers, shape memory alloys, elastomers, hydrogels, or composites.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design, modeling, and testing of a soft actuator with variable stiffness using granular jamming

Liang

Zeng

2022

Robotica

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Soft robots combine the load-bearing capability of rigid material with the resilience, shape-shifting capabilities of soft materials. This paper presents a novel soft actuator with stiffness variation using particulate jamming technology. We design a hybrid composite structure consisting of driving layer and jamming layer. The driving layer with the arc air chamber aim to achieve large bending deformation. A membrane containing particles is integrated with driving layer to module its stiffness. The influence factors of stiffness variation were analyzed from energy of point of view. The dependence of granular attributes on the stiffness of the actuator was studied. Furthermore, we illustrated influence of stiffness changes on the kinematic and dynamic performance of the soft actuator. The experimental results showed these performance indexes are twofold. On the one hand, the structural parameters have significant effect on the bending angle, but on the other hand they have little effect on the end force. We found that flow resistance inside air chamber results in bending morphology variation. The dynamic response subjected to a square-wave air pressure was analyzed to exhibit the actuator’s transient and steady vibration behavior. The actuator with greater stiffness has faster responsiveness, but smaller range of motion. These conclusions are helpful to adjust the stiffness behavior and to improve motion performance.

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“…18 Soft actuators are becoming very popular in various fields, 19 such as surgery, 20,21 rehabilitation, 22 and biomimetic robots. 23,24 Grippers 25 are one of the most fundamental robotic equipment used in these fields. 26 One important factor in grippers is the contact forces created between the gripper fingertips and the object being held.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Configuration detection and external force tuning for soft-bending actuators under position constraint

Karimpour

Ghalati

Ghafarirad

2022

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C:

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Nowadays, soft actuator development has become a big trend due to higher safety and more complex movements. One of the most interesting types of these actuators is called the “soft fiber-reinforced bending actuator,” which has been chosen for investigation in this study. The aim is to provide a codified model to investigate the static behavior and deformation of the actuator in both free and positional constrained conditions. Indeed, modeling of these actuators in the presence of external factors and constraints is significantly challenging due to distortion of conventional constant curvature assumptions applied in free motion. In this paper, hyper-elastic theories have been utilized to model the free motion behavior of a soft-bending actuator made from elastomeric materials. Then, the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory for bending deformation is used to investigate the effect of positional constraints on the actuator’s deformation. In addition, an optimization method is utilized to estimate the required internal pressure, which in turn tunes the contact force between the actuator tip and desired objects/obstacles. The experimental results are presented to validate the proposed theories in both free and constrained conditions. In this regard, first, the actuator’s behavior in free motion is properly investigated and proven valid. Then, the effects of positional constraints on the actuator and their contact force tuning are analyzed.

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Trunk-like Soft Actuator: Design, Modeling, and Experiments

Cited by 13 publications

References 27 publications

Design and Experiments of Pneumatic Soft Actuators

Design and Experiments of Pneumatic Soft Actuators

Design, modeling, and testing of a soft actuator with variable stiffness using granular jamming

Configuration detection and external force tuning for soft-bending actuators under position constraint

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