Novel design of a soft lightweight pneumatic continuum robot arm with decoupled variable stiffness and positioning

Giannaccini, ME; Xiang, CQ; Atyabi, A; Theodoridis, T; Nefti-Meziani, S; Davis, ST

Abstract

Soft robot arms possess unique capabilities when it comes to adaptability, flexibility and dexterity. In addition, soft systems that are pneumatically actuated can claim high power to weight ratio. One of the main drawbacks of pneumatically actuated soft arms is that their stiffness cannot be varied independently from their end-effector position in space. The novel robot arm physical design presented in this paper successfully decouples its end-effector positioning from its stiffness. An experimental characterisation of this ability is coupled with a mathematical analysis. The arm combines the light weight, high payload to weight ratio and robustness of pneumatic actuation with the adaptability and versatility of variable stiffness. Light weight is a vital component of the inherent safety approach to physical human-robot interaction. In order to characterise the arm, a neural network analysis of the curvature of the arm for different input pressures is performed. The curvature-pressure relationship is also characterised experimentally.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 1, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Oct 30, 2017
• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: Aug 10, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 31, 2017
• Journal: Soft Robotics
• Print ISSN: 2169-5172
• Electronic ISSN: 2169-5180
• Publisher: Mary Ann Liebert
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 54-70
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/soro.2016.0066
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/soro.2016.0066
• Related Public URLs: http://www.liebertpub.com/overview/soft-robotics/616/
• Additional Information: Funders : Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC); Projects : EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Intelligent Automation; Grant Number: EP/IO33467/1