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Adjustable stiffness elastic composite soft actuator for fast-moving robots

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Abstract

The application of soft pneumatic actuators is typically hindered by the low strength and slow response speed caused by their intrinsic material limitation and unstressed stable form. In this work, we present a design strategy for improving the performance and response speed for Pneu-Nets actuators by incorporating adjustable elastic components to form the elastic composite pneumatic actuator (ECPA). The elastic energy storage of the elastic component is implemented to enhance the capability and speed up the response of ECPA and pre-bend the actuator. Due to the design principle, the fully-flexible ECPA is easy to manufacture and regulate. Theoretical modeling and experiments are implemented to reveal the fast response characteristics and adjustable mechanical characteristics of ECPA. Experimental results show that the deflation response speed of ECPA is increased by at least 3.1 times with the action of elastic components, what is more, the stiffness of ECPA is increased by 22 times. Based on the ECPA, two kinds of locomotion robots including a running robot (runs at an average locomotion speed of 6.3 BL/s (body lengths, BL)) and an underwater swimming robot (achieves an average speed of 1.1 BL/s) are designed. The fast-moving robots both demonstrate high-speed mobility because of the rapid response and high strength of ECPA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    XinYu Guo, WenBo Li & WenMing Zhang

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  1. XinYu Guo
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  2. WenBo Li
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  3. WenMing Zhang
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Correspondence to WenMing Zhang.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 91748118 and 12032015), the Program of Shanghai Key Laboratory of Spacecraft Mechanism, the National Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (Grant No. 11625208), the Program of Shanghai Academic/Technology Research Leader (Grant No. 19XD1421600), and the National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (Grant No. BX20190201).

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Guo, X., Li, W. & Zhang, W. Adjustable stiffness elastic composite soft actuator for fast-moving robots. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 64, 1663–1675 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-020-1766-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-020-1766-y

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