Pneumatically Actuated Soft Robotic Arm for Adaptable Grasping

Soft robotics has experienced an exponential growth in publications in the last two decades. [1] Unlike rigid conventional manipulators, [2,3] soft robots based on hydrogels, [4,5] electroactive polymers, [6,7] and elastomers [7-9] are physically resilient and can adapt to delicate objects and environments due to their conformal deformation. [10,11] They also show increased safety and dexterity can be lightweight and used within constrained environments with restricted access. [12,13] Many soft robots have a biologically inspired design coming from snakes, [14-17] worms, [18-20] fishes, [21-24] manta rays, [25,26] and tentacles. [27-29] The scope of applications includes minimally invasive surgery, [30,31] rehabilitation, [32,33] elderly assistance, [34] safe human-robot interaction, [35,36] and handling of fragile materials. [37,38] Important features of soft robotics design, fabrication, modeling, and control are covered in the soft robotics toolkit. [39,40] The building blocks of soft robots are the soft actuators. The most popular category of soft actuator is the soft fluidic actuator (SFA), where actuation is achieved using hydraulics or pneumatics. [8,41] These actuators are usually fabricated with silicone rubbers following a 3D molding process, [42] although directly 3D printing the soft actuators is also possible. [43,44] Silicone rubber is a highly flexible/extensible elastomer with high-temperature resistance, lowtemperature flexibility, and good biocompatibility. [45] Elastomers can withstand very large strains over 500% with no permanent deformation or fracture. [46] For relatively small strains, simple linear stress-strain relationships can be used, and two of the following parameters can be used to describe the elastic properties: bulk compressibility, shear modulus, tensile modulus (Young's modulus of elasticity), or Poisson's ratio. [45] For large deformations, nonlinear solid mechanic models using hyperelasticity should be considered. [8,32,47-50] Due to the strong nonlinearities in SFAs and their complex geometries, analytical modeling is challenging. [51] A brief review of the analytical methods for modeling of soft robotic structures is provided in the following. 1.1. Analytical Modeling of Soft Actuators The majority of soft/continuum robots with bending motion can be approximated as a series of mutually tangent constant curvature sections, i.e., piecewise constant curvature. [52] This is a result of the fact that the internal potential energy is uniformly distributed along each section for pressure-driven robots. [53] This approach has also been validated using Hamilton's principle by Gravagne et al. [54] As discussed by Webster and Jones, [52] the kinematics of continuum robots can be separated into robotspecific and robot-independent components in this approach. The robot specific mapping transforms the input pressures P or actuator space q to the configuration space κ, ϕ, l, and the robot-independent mapping goes from the configuration space to the task space x. The actuator space contai...

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“…Contact boundaries: self-contact (standard). [158] Fiber reinforcement: mesh with quadratic beam elements. Tie constraints added after meshing.…”

Section: Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finite Element Modeling of Soft Fluidic Actuators: Overview and Recent Developments

Xavier

Fleming

Yong

2020

Advanced Intelligent Systems

186

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“…They can be applied in intelligent attachment robots [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 110 , 111 , 112 ] (e.g., AUV recovery, underwater transportation, monitoring, etc. ), mechanical attachment arms [ 122 , 123 , 124 , 125 , 126 , 127 ] (e.g., fruit picking for agricultural harvesting, manufacturing, packaging, transportation for industry, surgical robotic arm assistants for medical use, etc. ), wearable devices [ 172 , 173 , 174 , 175 , 176 ] (e.g., wet climbing, vital sign monitoring, electronic sensing, etc.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Various flexible gripping robotic arms were designed to achieve stable grasping of underwater objects. For example, imitating the flexible structure and unique motion mechanism of the ordinary octopus arms, a gripping adjustable robotic arm with multiple degrees of freedom was designed by Chen Zhe et al ( Figure 5 a) [ 122 ]. It was a gripper-type robotic arm that could grab objects with four octopus-like components.…”

Section: Research Status and Potential Application Fields Of Biomimet...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Advanced Bionic Attachment Equipment Inspired by the Attachment Performance of Aquatic Organisms: A Review

et al. 2023

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In nature, aquatic organisms have evolved various attachment systems, and their attachment ability has become a specific and mysterious survival skill for them. Therefore, it is significant to study and use their unique attachment surfaces and outstanding attachment characteristics for reference and develop new attachment equipment with excellent performance. Based on this, in this review, the unique non-smooth surface morphologies of their suction cups are classified and the key roles of these special surface morphologies in the attachment process are introduced in detail. The recent research on the attachment capacity of aquatic suction cups and other related attachment studies are described. Emphatically, the research progress of advanced bionic attachment equipment and technology in recent years, including attachment robots, flexible grasping manipulators, suction cup accessories, micro-suction cup patches, etc., is summarized. Finally, the existing problems and challenges in the field of biomimetic attachment are analyzed, and the focus and direction of biomimetic attachment research in the future are pointed out.

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“…According to the derived kinematic model, each sarcomere has the following dimensions (all in mm) at resting state: A = 30, h m = 28, a ch = 9.5, b ch = 10, a hz = 6, b hz = 15, h jz = 2, 23 The pressure is varied from 0.01 to 0.1 MPa with increments of 0.01 MPa. Higher values are not considered in the experiments in order to prevent APM breakage.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bio-Inspired Design of Artificial Striated Muscles Composed of Sarcomere-Like Contraction Units (preprint)

Labazanova,

Wu,

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Biological muscles have always attracted robotics researchers due to their efficient capabilities in compliance, force generation, and mechanical work. Many groups are working on the development of artificial muscles, however, state-of-the-art methods still fall short in performance when compared with their biological counterpart. Muscles with high force output are mostly rigid, whereas traditional soft actuators take much space and are limited in strength and producing displacement. In this work, we aim to find a reasonable trade-off between these features by mimicking the striated structure of skeletal muscles. For that, we designed an artificial pneumatic myofibril composed of multiple contraction units that combine stretchable and inextensible materials. Varying the geometric parameters and the number of units in series provides flexible adjustment of the desired muscle operation. We derived a mathematical model that predicts the relationship between the input pneumatic pressure and the generated output force. A detailed experimental study is conducted to validate the performance of the proposed bio-inspired muscle.

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Pneumatically Actuated Soft Robotic Arm for Adaptable Grasping

Cited by 34 publications

References 31 publications

Finite Element Modeling of Soft Fluidic Actuators: Overview and Recent Developments

Finite Element Modeling of Soft Fluidic Actuators: Overview and Recent Developments

Advanced Bionic Attachment Equipment Inspired by the Attachment Performance of Aquatic Organisms: A Review

Bio-Inspired Design of Artificial Striated Muscles Composed of Sarcomere-Like Contraction Units (preprint)

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