A Simulation-Based Toolbox to Expedite the Digital Design of Bellow Soft Pneumatic Actuators

Abstract

Task-oriented applications of soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) are growing, as digital design and rapid prototyping allow the actuator to be customised. The bellow SPA is promising for current soft material 3D printing due to small material stretch during actuation, yet the complex geometry causes challenges in physical modelling and design. This article provides the users with an open-source toolbox of simulation for a standardised bellow soft pneumatic actuator that can be 3D printed to expedite the design process. Based on MATLAB and COMSOL Multiphysics, the toolbox allows users to customise design features, automatically generate the CAD and then simulate the actuators' performance. It provides two methods to analyse the design: 1) a theoretical modelling method to quickly generate the actuator's workspace with interactive results, 2) a finite element method to evaluate in detail the actuator's deformation and force performance as well as the mechanical properties. The modelling is introduced and validated by comparing the experimental results of 3D printed bellow actuator prototypes with simulation results for angular deflection and blocked force. The maximum root-mean-square error for the theoretical modelling of deformation, finite element method of deformation and force are 9.00 • , 7.40 • and 1.66 g, respectively.

Characterisation and control platform for pneumatically driven soft robots: Design and applications

“…The functionality of the platform was validated by three use cases, including the characterisation of a variable stiffness, hybrid rigid-soft joint, an elastic membrane and the inverse kinematics control implementation of a soft continuum robot via Simulink. In line with efforts of the soft robotic community to support the design of soft robotic systems, e.g., in [16]- [19], [21] and the development of the modelling and control algorithms from [30]- [33], the combination of our platform with a GUI toolbox provides a solution to characterise soft robots' performances during the prototyping stage and to further build a validation bridge between the development of modelling algorithms and robot prototyping. The design is made freely available to potentially support the soft robotics community.…”

“…Sorotoki is a Matlab toolbox that offers the ability to design, model, and control soft robots, using the FEM and geometric theory [32]. To allow users to customise design parameters for bellow soft pneumatic bending actuators, a Matlab toolbox was designed in [33], which can generate CAD files and then simulate the actuators' performance using analytical or FEM models.…”

Rubber‐Like Soft Lattice Structure for Anti‐Ballooning in Fluidic Elastic Soft Robots

“…All soft lattice units were designed with CAD software (Solidworks 2020) and fabricated with Agilus30 (Stratasys Ltd, USA), a soft and rubber-like material with a quoted tensile strength of 2.4-3.1 MPa, an elongation at break of 220%-270% and a shore hardness of 30 A. Aglius30 was chosen in this study due to its softness and its wide use in the soft-robotics community to develop FEAs. [11,27,28] However, the application of developing FEA with lattice reinforcement was not investigated.…”

Diversity‐Based Topology Optimization of Soft Robotic Grippers

“…[29][30][31] However, several design toolkits have recently emerged which enable exploration of large design spaces using parameterised or implicit geometric descriptors. [32][33][34] Whilst vastly increasing tractable search space, these toolkits remain restricted to designs using hollow pneumatic chambers.…”