Expanding Pouch Motor Patterns for Programmable Soft Bending Actuation: Enabling Soft Robotic System Adaptations

Abstract

The use of soft robots to interact with soft, fragile, and even living things has spurred interest in the development of soft robotic systems that can deform and adapt themselves to their environment through their inherent compliance. Current soft pneumatic actuator concepts require significant redesign to be repurposed from one function to another, and a complete soft robotic system may be composed of multiple types of actuators with varying materials, designs, and manufacturing methods. This complicates the process of designing and manufacturing soft robots that can tackle new tasks and environments. This work introduces a repeatable pattern of pouch motors with geometric constraints allowing the actuator to produce a programmable bending deformation. By varying the dimensions of the pattern, it is possible to produce different motions that can be used to build diverse robotic components, such as a soft robotic arm or a large soft robotic gripper.