Abstract
Soft robotics and actuators are becoming increasingly popular with diverse applications; their compliant structures and smooth deformations, which give rise to its softness, offer inherent safety to humans. This paper introduces the design of a twisting soft actuator based on pleated films that is inspired by the design of composite structures and that is capable of very large twisting angles. It has a simple design, it is easy to manufacture, low-cost, can be made from a wide range of inexpensive materials, can produce large twisting deformations (> 360°) and large torque (> 0.7 Nm). The proposed actuator design consists of a flat structure composed of two inextensible films that are bonded to form a pouch that expands like a balloon when pressurized. This pouch has anti-symmetrically arranged pleats on the surface of both films that cause the actuator to undergo a twisting along with the expansion of the volume. A parametric study of the actuator including the angle of the pleats, the number of pleats, the width of the actuator, the pleat width and the distance between pleats was conducted to determine the effect of each parameter on the twisting angle and the torque produced.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cho, K.-J., Koh, J.-S., Kim, S., Chu, W.-S., Hong, Y., & Ahn, S.-H. (2009). Review of manufacturing processes for soft biomimetic robots. International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing, 10(3), 171–181. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-009-0064-6.
Laschi, C., & Cianchetti, M. (2014). Soft robotics: New perspectives for robot bodyware and control. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 2, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2014.00003.
Rus, D., & Tolley, M. T. (2015). Design, fabrication and control of soft robots. Nature, 521(7553), 467–475. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14543.
Chen, D., & Pei, Q. (2017). Electronic muscles and skins: A review of soft sensors and actuators. Chemical Reviews, 117(17), 11239–11268. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.7b00019.
Chu, W.-S., Lee, K.-T., Song, S.-H., Han, M.-W., Lee, J.-Y., Kim, H.-S., et al. (2012). Review of biomimetic underwater robots using smart actuators. International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing, 13(7), 1281–1292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-012-0171-7.
Kim, M.-S., Chu, W.-S., Lee, J.-H., Kim, Y.-M., & Ahn, S.-H. (2011). Manufacturing of inchworm robot using shape memory alloy (SMA) embedded composite structure. International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing, 12(3), 565–568. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-011-0071-2.
Riddle, R. O., Jung, Y., Kim, S.-M., Song, S., Stolpman, B., Kim, K. J., et al. (2010). Sectored-electrode IPMC actuator for bending and twisting motion. In SPIE 7642, electroactive polymer actuators and devices, San Diego, CA, USA, 2010 (p. 764221). SPIE.
Jeon, J.-H., & Oh, I.-K. (2009). Selective growth of platinum electrodes for MDOF IPMC actuators. Thin Solid Films, 517(17), 5288–5292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2009.03.111.
Jeon, J.-H., Yeom, S.-W., & Oh, I.-K. (2008). Fabrication and actuation of ionic polymer metal composites patterned by combining electroplating with electroless plating. Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, 39(4), 588–596. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesa.2007.07.013.
Palmre, V., Hubbard, J. J., Fleming, M., Pugal, D., Kim, S., Kim, K. J., et al. (2013). An IPMC-enabled bio-inspired bending/twisting fin for underwater applications. Smart Materials and Structures, 22(1), 014003. https://doi.org/10.1088/0964-1726/22/1/014003.
Rodrigue, H., Wang, W., Bhandari, B., & Ahn, S.-H. (2015). Fabrication of wrist-like SMA-based actuator by double smart soft composite casting. Smart Materials and Structures, 24(12), 125003. https://doi.org/10.1088/0964-1726/24/12/125003.
Shim, J.-E., Quan, Y.-J., Wang, W., Rodrigue, H., Song, S.-H., & Ahn, S.-H. (2015). A smart soft actuator using a single shape memory alloy for twisting actuation. Smart Materials and Structures, 24(12), 125033. https://doi.org/10.1088/0964-1726/24/12/125033.
Song, S.-H., Lee, H., Lee, J.-G., Lee, J.-Y., Cho, M., & Ahn, S.-H. (2016). Design and analysis of a smart soft composite structure for various modes of actuation. Composites Part B Engineering, 95, 155–165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2016.03.087.
Rodrigue, H., Wang, W., Bhandari, B., Han, M.-W., & Ahn, S.-H. (2014). Cross-shaped twisting structure using SMA-based smart soft composite. International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing-Green Technology, 1(2), 153–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40684-014-0020-5.
Ahn, S.-H., Lee, K.-T., Kim, H.-J., Wu, R., Kim, J.-S., & Song, S.-H. (2012). Smart soft composite: An integrated 3D soft morphing structure using bend-twist coupling of anisotropic materials. International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing, 13(4), 631–634. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-012-0081-8.
Engen, T. J. (1959). A plastic hand orthosis. Orthopedic & Prosthetic Appliance Journal, 13, 38–43.
Daerden, F., & Lefeber, D. (2002). Pneumatic artificial muscles: Actuators for robotics and automation. European Journal of Mechanical and Environmental Engineering, 47(1), 11–21.
Doumit, M., Fahim, A., & Munro, M. (2009). Analytical modeling and experimental validation of the braided pneumatic muscle. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 25(6), 1282–1291.
Tondu, B. (2012). Modelling of the McKibben artificial muscle: A review. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, 23(3), 225–253. https://doi.org/10.1177/1045389x11435435.
Chang, B. C.-M., Berring, J., Venkataram, M., Menon, C., & Parameswaran, M. (2011). Bending fluidic actuator for smart structures. Smart Materials and Structures, 20(3), 035012. https://doi.org/10.1088/0964-1726/20/3/035012.
Shapiro, Y., Wolf, A., & Gabor, K. (2011). Bi-bellows: Pneumatic bending actuator. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, 167(2), 484–494. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2011.03.008.
Suzumori, K., Iikura, S., & Tanaka, H. (1991). Flexible microactuator for miniature robots. In An investigation of micro structures, sensors, actuators, machines and robots, Nara, Japan, January 30–February 2 1991 (pp. 204–209). IEEE.
Shepherd, R. F., Ilievski, F., Choi, W., Morin, S. A., Stokes, A. A., Mazzeo, A. D., et al. (2011). Multigait soft robot. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 108(51), 20400–20403. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1116564108.
Suzumori, K., Endo, S., Kanda, T., Kato, N., & Suzuki, H. (2007). A bending pneumatic rubber actuator realizing soft-bodied manta swimming robot. In IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, Roma, Italy, April 10–14 2007 (pp. 4975–4980). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/robot.2007.364246.
Marchese, A. D., Onal, C. D., & Rus, D. (2014). Autonomous soft robotic fish capable of escape maneuvers using fluidic elastomer actuators. Soft Robotics, 1(1), 75–87. https://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2013.0009.
Marchese, A. D., Katzschmann, R. K., & Rus, D. (2014). Whole arm planning for a soft and highly compliant 2D robotic manipulator. In IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems, Chicago, IL, USA, September 2014. IEEE.
Jeong, O. C., & Konishi, S. (2006). All PDMS pneumatic microfinger with bidirectional motion and its application. Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, 15(4), 896–903. https://doi.org/10.1109/JMEMS.2006.879377.
Wakimoto, S., Ogura, K., Suzumori, K., & Nishioka, Y. (2009). Miniature soft hand with curling rubber pneumatic actuators. In IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, Kobe, Japan, May 12–17 2009 (pp. 556–561). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/robot.2009.5152259.
Krishnan, G. (2014). Kinematics of a new class of smart actuators for soft robots based on generalized pneumatic artificial muscles. In IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems, Chicago, IL, USA, September 14–18 2014 (pp. 587–592). IEEE.
Gorissen, B., Chishiro, T., Shimomura, S., Reynaerts, D., De Volder, M., & Konishi, S. (2014). Flexible pneumatic twisting actuators and their application to tilting micromirrors. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, 216, 426–431. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2014.01.015.
Martinez, R. V., Fish, C. R., Chen, X., & Whitesides, G. M. (2012). Elastomeric origami: Programmable paper-elastomer composites as pneumatic actuators. Advanced Functional Materials, 22(7), 1376–1384.
Kim, H.-J., Tanaka, Y., Kawamura, A., Kawamura, S., & Nishioka, Y. (2015). Improvement of position accuracy for inflatable robotic arm using visual feedback control method. In IEEE international conference on advanced intelligent mechatronics (AIM), Busan, Korea, 2015 (pp. 767–772). https://doi.org/10.1109/aim.2015.7222630.
Best, C. M., Wilson, J. P., & Killpack, M. D. (2015). Control of a pneumatically actuated, fully inflatable, fabric-based, humanoid robot. In IEEE-RAS 15th international conference on humanoid robots (humanoids), Seoul, Korea, 2015 (pp. 1133–1140). https://doi.org/10.1109/humanoids.2015.7363495.
Kimura, H., Matsuzaki, T., Kataoka, M., & Inou, N. (2013). Active joint mechanism driven by multiple actuators made of flexible bags: A proposal of dual structural actuator. Scientific World Journal, 2013, 128916. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/128916.
Niiyama, R., Sun, X., Sung, C., An, B., Rus, D., & Kim, S. (2015). Pouch motors: Printable soft actuators integrated with computational design. Soft Robotics, 2(2), 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2014.0023.
Niiyama, R., Rognon, C., & Kuniyoshi, Y. (2015). Printable pneumatic artificial muscles for anatomy-based humanoid robots. In IEEE-RAS 15th international conference on humanoid robots (humanoids), 2015 (pp. 401–406).
Chang, S.-Y., Takashima, K., Nishikawa, S., Niiyama, R., Someya, T., Onodera, H., et al. (2015). Design of small-size pouch motors for rat gait rehabilitation device. In 37th annual international conference of the IEEE engineering in medicine and biology society (EMBC), 2015 (pp. 4578–4581). https://doi.org/10.1109/embc.2015.7319413.
Veale, A. J., Xie, S. Q., & Anderson, I. A. (2016). Modeling the Peano fluidic muscle and the effects of its material properties on its static and dynamic behavior. Smart Materials and Structures, 25(6), 065014. https://doi.org/10.1088/0964-1726/25/6/065014.
Nishioka, Y., Uesu, M., & Tsuboi, H. (2012). Proposal of an extremely lightweight soft actuator using plastic films with a pleated structure. In 19th international conference on mechatronics and machine vision in practice (M2VIP), 2012 (pp. 474–479).
Amase, H., Nishioka, Y., & Yasuda, T. (2015). Mechanism and basic characteristics of a helical inflatable gripper. In IEEE international conference on mechatronics and automation, 2015 (pp. 2559–2564). https://doi.org/10.1109/icma.2015.7237890.
Sanan, S., Lynn, P. S., & Griffith, S. T. (2014). Pneumatic torsional actuators for inflatable robots. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, 6(3), 031003. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4026629.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Technology Innovation Program (or Industrial Strategic Technology Development Program (10080336) funded By the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MI, Korea), by the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning) (No. 2018R1C1B6003990), and by the convergence technology development program for bionic arm through the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science & ICT (No. 2014M3C1B2048175). We would like to show our gratitude to Sarah Ahn who greatly assisted with the manufacturing process.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ahn, C.H., Wang, W., Jung, J. et al. Pleated Film-Based Soft Twisting Actuator. Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 20, 1149–1158 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-019-00110-3
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-019-00110-3