Soft robotic actuator design with pneumatic muscles

Abstract

This study presents the design of a soft robotic actuator to serve as a medically assisted rehabilitation device. The actuator was to be mounted on a human arm, and it had pneumatic muscles connecting onto it. The pneumatic muscles were supposed to provide a force on the actuator to reduce force required by the human arm when the person wearing the actuator was trying to lift some objects. This report introduces how the soft robotic actuator was designed and how were the pneumatic muscles connecting onto the actuator. A prototype was built, and various experiments were conducted to study the optimal positions and sizes of pneumatic muscles on the actuator. The patterns of lengths change, and forces generated by different sizes of pneumatic muscles were studied to make the actuator provide larger force reduction. Automation sensing system was implemented on the actuator to provide a smarter controlling method of the actuator, and it would also be introduced and discussed in this report.