Soft Pneumatic Actuator Fascicles for High Force and Reliability.
Soft Pneumatic Actuator Fascicles for High Force and Reliability.
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DOI：
10.1089/soro.2016.0029
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发表时间：
2017-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
7.9
通讯作者：
Paik J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Robertson MA;Sadeghi H;Florez JM;Paik J
软气动执行器(SPA)广泛应用于移动机器人、辅助穿戴设备和康复技术中。虽然软执行器一直是引领软机器人领域发展的最关键的技术元素之一，但它们无法满足许多任务的力输出和带宽要求。此外，其他一般性问题仍然悬而未决，包括健壮性、可控性和可重复性。本文提出的SPA组件体系结构旨在满足这些对软机器人领域至关重要的可靠性标准，同时通过借鉴生物学中普遍利用的优势来提高SPA的基本性能；即，结构化地并行布置较低功率的执行器，以形成更大、更强大的执行器模块的基础。将使用分析模型和物理原型研究由多个较小的SPA组成的SPA组件模块。实验测量表明，SPA组件可以产生超过112SPA N的线性作用力，而模型表明，在几何等价的单个SPA尺度上，并行执行器分组的好处是随着组中单个执行器数量的增加而增加的。对于一个由四个执行器组成的模块，预测和验证了与体积等效的单个SPA相比，力产生增加23%，而进一步增加的可能性高达50%。这些发现肯定了利用分束结构用于高性能软机器人应用的优势，而不是现有的单片SPA设计。以一个高性能软机器人平台为例，展示了SPA-PACK模块在一个完整的、可运行的系统中的能力。
Soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) are found in mobile robots, assistive wearable devices, and rehabilitative technologies. While soft actuators have been one of the most crucial elements of technology leading the development of the soft robotics field, they fall short of force output and bandwidth requirements for many tasks. In addition, other general problems remain open, including robustness, controllability, and repeatability. The SPA-pack architecture presented here aims to satisfy these standards of reliability crucial to the field of soft robotics, while also improving the basic performance capabilities of SPAs by borrowing advantages leveraged ubiquitously in biology; namely, the structured parallel arrangement of lower power actuators to form the basis of a larger and more powerful actuator module. An SPA-pack module consisting of a number of smaller SPAs will be studied using an analytical model and physical prototype. Experimental measurements show an SPA pack to generate over 112 N linear force, while the model indicates the benefit of parallel actuator grouping over a geometrically equivalent single SPA scale as an increasing function of the number of individual actuators in the group. For a module of four actuators, a 23% increase in force production over a volumetrically equivalent single SPA is predicted and validated, while further gains appear possible up to 50%. These findings affirm the advantage of utilizing a fascicle structure for high-performance soft robotic applications over existing monolithic SPA designs. An example of high-performance soft robotic platform will be presented to demonstrate the capability of SPA-pack modules in a complete and functional system.