A Variable Stiffness Soft Gripper Using Granular Jamming and Biologically Inspired Pneumatic Muscles

Abeach, Loai A.T. Al; Nefti‐Meziani, Samia; Theodoridis, Theo; Davis, Steve

doi:10.1007/s42235-018-0018-8

Cited by 52 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Jamming‐based stiffening is emerging with many new possibilities among the methods of achieving tunable stiffness . Particle jamming and layer jamming have recently been investigated as methods to change the stiffness of soft medical robots.…”

Section: Tunable Stiffness In Soft Medical Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of recent advancements in soft and flexible robots for medical applications

Zhang

2020

Robotics Computer Surgery

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Background: Soft and flexible robots for medical applications are needed to change their flexibility over a wide range to perform tasks adequately. The mechanism and theory of flexibility has been a scientific issue and is of interest to the community. Methods: Recent advancements of bionics, flexible actuation, sensing, and intelligent control algorithms as well as tunable stiffness have been referenced when soft and flexible robots are developed. The benefits and limitations of these relevant studies and how they affect the flexibility are discussed, and possible research directions are explored. Results: The bionic materials and structures that demonstrate the potential capabilities of the soft medical robot flexibility are the fundamental guarantee for clinical medical applications. Flexible actuation that used to provide power, intelligent control algorithms which are the exact executors, and the wide range stiffness of the soft materials are the three important influence factors for soft medical robots. Conclusion: Some reasonable suggestions and possible solutions for soft and flexible medical robots are proposed, including novel materials, flexible actuation concepts with a built-in source of energy or power, programmable flexibility, and adjustable stiffness. K E Y W O R D S bionics, flexible actuation, sensing and intelligent control algorithm, soft and flexible robots, tunable stiffness 1 | INTRODUCTION The application of robots in the medical field dates back to a few decades ago, but the recent use of soft materials in medical robots has enabled new capabilities that create possibilities for medical treatments in which much safer human-robot interaction is preferred. 1-3 Soft medical robots are defined as soft and flexible electro-mechanical systems with high flexibility performing medical applications. Soft medical robots are multidisciplinary emerging technologies 4 such as materials science, bionics, mechanics, electronics, and computer science. At present, soft medical robots have been used for surgery, 5diagnosis, 6 rehabilitation, 7 prostheses, 8 artificial organs, 9 drug delivery 10 and many other medical applications. [11][12][13][14][15][16] The movements such as bending, torsion, extension, and contact operations 17 required high flexibility and deformability 18 of soft medical robots.Soft medical robots exhibit a range of degrees of flexibility during medical applications. In this paper, flexibility is used to describe the characteristics of soft medical robots that have a proper combination of stiffness and compliance and it is on the scientific level. Actually, flexibility reflects in three aspects: the variety of shape, the wide range of stiffness, and the adequate force applied. It is necessary for soft medical robots that it can change their flexibility degree over a wide range to perform tasks adequately. For example, there has certainly been a longterm demand in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) applications for soft medical robots that can move, deform, navigate narrow gaps, and int...

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Section: Tunable Stiffness In Soft Medical Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of recent advancements in soft and flexible robots for medical applications

Zhang

2020

Robotics Computer Surgery

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“…(a) The soft arm using jamming to change its stiffness; (b) CAD model of each module of the soft arm in Figure 10(a) 65 ; (c) the soft finger utilizing granular jamming 71 ; and (d) the soft manipulator with layer jamming structure. 70 …”

Section: Outlook Of Soft Underwater Manipulatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

For safe and compliant interaction: an outlook of soft underwater manipulators

Wang

Cui

2020

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part M:

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As underwater missions become more and more complex, novel underwater manipulators with better performance are demanding. Soft underwater manipulators are judged to be the development direction and expected to have better performance in safe and compliant interaction with the target in underwater operations such as biological sampling. This paper provides an overview on the state-of-the-art of both hard and soft underwater manipulators to give a prospect for soft underwater manipulators. Key technologies in the design of soft underwater manipulators are identified, including the configuration design, actuator design and stiffening design of them.

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“…However, the fiber-reinforced method also brings new problem: it has high flexibility, but it still has the shortcomings of insufficient rigidity and small payload. In order to address the above disadvantages, Abeach et al 16 of University of Salford in 2018 presents the design and testing of a variable stiffness, three fingered soft gripper which uses pneumatic muscles to actuate the fingers and granular jamming to vary their stiffness, but it is more difficult for the soft gripper to restore the initial state because of the existence of gravity and friction. Although the soft hoop-reinforced pneumatic actuator has a certain improvement in load performance compared to the conventional soft actuator, to the best of our knowledge, the question of weak rigidity and poor load performance of the soft actuator has not yet been well solved.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on performance of rigid-hoop-reinforced multi-DOF soft actuator

Jin

Zhang

et al. 2021

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

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In order to improve the bearing capacity of soft actuators, this article presents the development of the rigid-hoop-reinforced (spring or steel hoop) multi-DOF soft actuator. The actuator is composed of a rotary module with spring reinforcement on the silicone rubber-based body and a bending module with steel hoop reinforcement on the body. Compared with fiber-reinforced actuators, the bearing capacities of rigid-hoop-reinforced actuators made of 65Mn spring steel are improved. The radial and the axial bearing capacity for the bending module and the rotary module is raised by 29.6%, 28.2%, 30.6%, 49.6% respectively; under the same pressure, the spring-reinforced interval increases the maximum rotary angle of the rotary module, the steel hoop-reinforced interval increases the maximum bending angle of the bending module; with the same reinforcement type, the bending module with reinforcement interval of 10 mm has good bending characteristics that the bending angle changes with the pressure gently; the lower the hardness of silicone rubber base body, the better the adaptability and flexibility of the actuator, and the higher the hardness, the greater the bearing capacity of the actuator. Due to the above advantages, the rigid-hoop-reinforced multi-DOF soft actuator can be applied to medical devices which need high load-carrying capacity.

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A Variable Stiffness Soft Gripper Using Granular Jamming and Biologically Inspired Pneumatic Muscles

Cited by 52 publications

References 27 publications

A review of recent advancements in soft and flexible robots for medical applications

A review of recent advancements in soft and flexible robots for medical applications

For safe and compliant interaction: an outlook of soft underwater manipulators

Research on performance of rigid-hoop-reinforced multi-DOF soft actuator

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