The design, kinematics and torque analysis of the self-bending soft contraction actuator

Al-Ibadi, A; Nefti-Meziani, S; Davis, ST

Abstract

This article presents the development of a self-bending contraction actuator (SBCA) through analysis of its structure, kinematics, and torque formulas, and then explores its applications. The proposed actuator has been fabricated by two methods to prove the efficiency of the human body inspiration, which represents the covering of human bones by soft tissues to protect the bone and give the soft texture. The SBCA provides bending behaviour along with a high force to-weight ratio. As with the simple pneumatic muscle actuator (PMA), the SBCA is soft and easy to implement. Both the kinematics and the torque formula presented for the SBCA are scalable and can be used with different actuator sizes. The bending actuator has been tested under an air pressure up to 500 kPa, and the behaviour of its bending angle, parameters, dimensions, and the bending torques have been illustrated. On the other hand, the experiments showed the efficient performances of the actuator and validate the proposed kinematics. Therefore, the actuator can be used in many different applications, such as soft grippers and continuum arms.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 27, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Apr 29, 2020
• Publication Date: Apr 29, 2020
• Deposit Date: Apr 28, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: May 1, 2020
• Journal: Actuators
• Electronic ISSN: 2076-0825
• Publisher: MDPI
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 2
• Pages: e33
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/act9020033
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/act9020033
• Related Public URLs: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/actuators