Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-d6ndz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-26T07:55:56.641Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Design, modeling, and testing of a soft actuator with variable stiffness using granular jamming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2022

Junfeng Hu Open the ORCID record for Junfeng Hu [Opens in a new window] ,
Long Liang  and
Bin Zeng
Junfeng Hu*
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Ganzhou, China
Long Liang
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Ganzhou, China
Bin Zeng
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Ganzhou, China
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: hjfsuper@126.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Soft robots combine the load-bearing capability of rigid material with the resilience, shape-shifting capabilities of soft materials. This paper presents a novel soft actuator with stiffness variation using particulate jamming technology. We design a hybrid composite structure consisting of driving layer and jamming layer. The driving layer with the arc air chamber aim to achieve large bending deformation. A membrane containing particles is integrated with driving layer to module its stiffness. The influence factors of stiffness variation were analyzed from energy of point of view. The dependence of granular attributes on the stiffness of the actuator was studied. Furthermore, we illustrated influence of stiffness changes on the kinematic and dynamic performance of the soft actuator. The experimental results showed these performance indexes are twofold. On the one hand, the structural parameters have significant effect on the bending angle, but on the other hand they have little effect on the end force. We found that flow resistance inside air chamber results in bending morphology variation. The dynamic response subjected to a square-wave air pressure was analyzed to exhibit the actuator’s transient and steady vibration behavior. The actuator with greater stiffness has faster responsiveness, but smaller range of motion. These conclusions are helpful to adjust the stiffness behavior and to improve motion performance.

Keywords

soft actuatorvariable stiffnessgranular jammingheavy-load actuator

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Robotica , Volume 40 , Issue 7 , July 2022 , pp. 2468 - 2484
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Suzumori, K., Iikura, S. and Tanaka, H., “Development of Flexible Microactuator and its Applications to Robotic Mechanisms,” Proceedings. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (IEEE Computer Society, 1991).Google Scholar
Rus, D. and Tolley, M. T., “Design, fabrication and control of soft robots,”Nature 521, 467–475 (2015).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laschi, C., Mazzolai, B. and Cianchetti, M., “Soft robotics: Technologies and systems pushing the boundaries of robot abilities,”Sci. Rob. 1(1), eaah3690 (2016).Google ScholarPubMed
Rich, S. I., Wood, R. J. and Majidi, C., “Untethered soft robotics,” Nat. Electron. 1(2), 102–112 (2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeong, D. and Lee, K., “Design and analysis of an origami-based three-finger manipulator,” Robotica 36(2), 261–274 (2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kastor, N., Mukherjee, R., Cohen, E., Vikas, V., Trimmer, B. A. and White, R. D., “Design and manufacturing of tendon-driven soft foam robots,” Robotica 38(1), 88–105 (2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bao, G., Chen, L., Zhang, Y., Cai, S., Xu, F., Yang, Q. and Zhang, L., “Trunk-like soft actuator: design, modeling, and experiments,” Robotica 38(4), 732–746 (2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haines, C. S., Lima, M., Li, N., Spinks, G. M., Foroughi, J., Madden, J., Kim, S., Fang, S., Andrade, M., Göktepe, F., Göktepe, Ö., Mirvakili, S., Naficy, S., Lepro, X., Oh, J., Kozlov, M., Kim, S., Xu, X., Swedlove, B., Wallace, G. and Baughman, R., “Artificial muscles from fishing line and sewing thread,” Science 343(6173), 868–872 (2014).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Firouzeh, A., Salerno, M. and Paik, J., “Soft Pneumatic Actuator with Adjustable Stiffness Layers for Multi-Dof Actuation,” 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE, 2015).Google Scholar
Tonazzini, A., Mintchev, S., Schubert, B., Mazzolai, B., Shintake, J. and Floreano, D., “Variable stiffness fiber with self-healing capability,” Adv. Mater. 28(46), 10142–10148 (2016).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haibin, Y., Kong, C., Li, J. and Yang, G., “Modeling of grasping force for a soft robotic gripper with variable stiffness,” Mech. Mach. Theory 128, 254–274 (2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Majidi, C. and Wood, R. J., “Tunable elastic stiffness with micro confined magnetorheological domains at low magnetic field,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 97(16), 164104 (2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheng, N. G., Gopinath, A. and Wang, L., “Thermally tunable, self-healing composites for soft robotic applications,” Macromol. Mater. Eng. 299(11), 1279–1284 (2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Y. F., Zhang, N. B. and Hardik, H., “Fast-response, stiffness-tunable soft actuator by hybrid multilateral 3D printing,” Adv. Funct. Mater. 29(15), 1806698 (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alambeigi, F., Seifabadi, R. and Armand, M., “A Continuum Manipulator with Phase Changing Alloy,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (2016) pp. 758–764.Google Scholar
Wei, Y., Chen, Y., Ren, T., Chen, Q., Yan, C., Yang, Y. and Li, Y., “A novel, variable stiffness robotic gripper based on integrated soft actuating and particle jamming,” Soft Rob. 3(3), 134–143 (2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Y., Chen, Y., Yang, Y. and Wei, Y., “Passive particle jamming and its stiffening of soft robotic grippers,” IEEE Trans. Rob. 33(2), 446–455 (2017).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Narang, Y. S., Vlassak, J. J. and Howe, R. D., “Mechanically versatile soft machines through laminar jamming,” Adv. Funct. Mater. 28(17), 1707136 (2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choi, W. H., Kim, S., Lee, D. and Shin, D., “Soft, multi-DoF, variable stiffness mechanism using layer jamming for wearable robots,” IEEE Rob. Autom. Lett. 4(3), 2539–2546 (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amend, J. R., Brown, E. and Rodenberg, N., “A positive pressure universal gripper based on the Jamming of granular material,” IEEE Trans. Rob. 28(2), 341–350 (2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, E., Rodenberg, N. and Amend, J., “Universal robotic gripper based on the jamming of granular material,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 107(44),18809–18814 (2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loeve, A. J., Ven, O. S. and Vogel, J. G., “Vacuum packed particles as flexible endoscope guides with controllable rigidity,” Granular Matter 12(6), 543–554 (2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Y. J., Cheng, S. and Kim, S., “A novel layer Jamming mechanism with tunable stiffness capability for minimally invasive surgery,” IEEE Trans. Rob. 29(4), 1031–1042 (2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, T., Zhang, J. Li, Y., Hong, J. and Wang, M. Y., “Electrostatic layer jamming variable stiffness for soft robotics,” IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatron. 24(2), 424–433 (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amend, J. and Lipson, H., “The JamHand: Dexterous manipulation with minimal actuation,” Soft Rob. 4(1), 70–80 (2017).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Li, Y., Chen, Y., Yang, Y. and Wei, Y., “Passive particle jamming and its stiffening of soft robotic grippers,” IEEE Trans. Rob. 33(2), 446–455 (2017).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wei, Y., Chen, Y., Yang, Y. and Li, Y., “A soft robotic with tunable stiffness based on integrated ball joint and particle jamming,” Mechatronics 33, 84–92 (2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mosadegh, B., Polygerinos, P. and Keplinger, C., “Soft robotics: Pneumatic networks for soft robotics that actuate rapidly,” Adv. Funct. Mater. 24(15), 2109–2109 (2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abeach, L. A., Nefti-Meziani, S. and Theodoridis, T., “A variable stiffness soft gripper using granular jamming and biologically inspired pneumatic muscles,” J. Biomimetic Eng. 15(2), 236–246 (2018).Google Scholar
Yang, Y., Chen, Y., Li, Y., Michael, Z. Q. Chen and Wei, Y., “Bioinspired robotic fingers based on pneumatic actuator and 3D printing of smart material,” Soft Rob. 4(2), 147–162 (2017).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: File

Hu et al. supplementary material

Hu et al. supplementary material

Download Hu et al. supplementary material(File)
File 54.9 KB