Traditional
pneumatic soft actuators have been widely used in the
field of soft robotics owing to their high output force and large
deformation capabilities. However, their bulky pumping systems pose
limitations on their portability and miniaturization. In this study,
we propose a method of PVA film-assisted manufacturing chamber and
design an electrothermal soft actuator based on a phase change material.
The actuator makes the phase change material filled in the chamber
change into the vapor phase by heating from the embedded electrothermal
wire, thus driving the actuator to deform. The actuator designed in
this article can achieve a unilateral deformation of 17 mm and an
output force of 0.265 N at a voltage of 5 V (the weight of the actuator
itself is 1.5 g). In addition, based on the absolute node coordinate
method, we adopt the hyperelastic material model, which can well describe
the large deformation behavior of this soft structure, to model the
actuator.