Soft robotic manipulators with fluidic actuation are devices with easily deformable structures that comprise a set of chambers that can be pressurized to achieve structural deflection. These devices have experienced a rapid development in recent years, which is not least due to the advantages they offer in terms of robustness, affordability, and compliance. Nowadays, however, soft robotic manipulators are designed mostly by intuition, which complicates design improvement and hampers the advancement of the field. In this article, a general study of the design of soft robotic manipulators with fluidic actuation is presented using an analytical derivation. The study relies on a novel approach that is applicable to a general design and thus provides a common framework for the design of soft robots. In the study, two design layouts of interest are first justified, which correspond to extending and contracting devices. Design principles for each of the layouts are subsequently derived, both for planar and 3D scenarios, and considering operation to support any external loading and to provide any desired deflection. These principles are found to agree with the main design trends in the literature, although they also highlight the potential for improvement in specific aspects of the design geometry and stiffness distribution. The principles are used to identify the most suitable design for both extending and contracting devices in 2D and 3D and extract insight into their behavior. To showcase the use of these design principles, a prototypical scenario in minimally invasive surgery requiring a manipulator segment capable of bending in any direction is defined, where the objective is to maximize its lateral force. The principles are applied to determine the most suitable design. These also highlight the need for numerical analysis to optimize two design parameters. Finite element simulations are developed, and their results are reported. Among the most relevant is the fact that the cross-sectional area with pressurized fluid should be maximized and that the stiffness in the design should be selected to minimize structural stretching. The simulations yield the optimal design, which offers higher force than existing, reference ones. The simulations also provide verification for the study.

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A dual frequency mixing technique has been developed for measuring velocity changes caused by material nonlinearity. The technique is based on the parametric interaction between two surface acoustic waves (SAWs): The low frequency pump SAW generated by a transducer and the high frequency probe SAW generated and detected using laser ultrasonics. The pump SAW stresses the material under the probe SAW. The stress (typically <5 MPa) is controlled by varying the timing between the pump and probe waves. The nonlinear interaction is measured as a phase modulation of the probe SAW and equated to a velocity change. The velocity-stress relationship is used as a measure of material nonlinearity. Experiments were conducted to observe the pump-probe interaction by changing the pump frequency and compare the nonlinear response of aluminum and fused silica. Experiments showed these two materials had opposite nonlinear responses, consistent with previously published data. The technique could be applied to life-time predictions of engineered components by measuring changes in nonlinear response caused by fatigue.

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