Design and Experiment of a Fast-Soft Pneumatic Actuator with High Output Force

Abstract

This study proposes a novel high-speed and heavy-load soft pneumatic actuator, inspired by a snake that stores energy using its wavy body configuration. The snake-like soft pneumatic actuator consists of a wavy chamber attached to an inextensible layer. The finite element model is developed to analyze the static behavior. Since the wavy and continuous chamber is difficult to fabricate, a new fabrication method has been developed. Experiments conducted to evaluate the bending behavior, speed, output force, and payload capacity of the actuator in different air pressures. Experiment outcomes are in good agreement with the simulation results and illustrate that the proposed soft pneumatic actuator achieves a complete bending in only 65 ms with outstanding output force and load capacity.