Soft FIBER REINFORCED ACTUATORS

Project brief

Soft fluidic actuators consisting of elastomeric matrices with embedded flexible materials are of particular interest to the robotics community because they are affordable and can be easily customized to a given application. However, the significant potential of such actuators is currently limited as their design has typically been based on intuition. In this work, a soft bending actuator consisting of a hemi-cylindrical composite tube with anisotropic bulk material properties consisting of elastomer with embedded helically wound fibers and a thin flexible sheet is presented. The principle of operation of these actuators is described through experimentally validated analytical and finite element method models for bending and force generation when in contact with an object. This work provides a set of design rules to understand how these actuators vary their outputs as a function of input pressure for a number of geometrical parameters.