Automatic design of fiber-reinforced soft actuators for trajectory matching

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  • Fionnuala Connolly
    Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, MA 02138;
  • Conor J. Walsh
    Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, MA 02138;
  • Katia Bertoldi
    Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, MA 02138;

Bibliographic Information

Published
2016-12-19
Rights Information
  • http://www.pnas.org/site/misc/userlicense.xhtml
DOI
  • 10.1073/pnas.1615140114
Publisher
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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<jats:title>Significance</jats:title> <jats:p>Fluid-powered elastomeric soft robots have been shown to be able to generate complex output motion using a simple control input such as pressurization of a working fluid. This capability, which mimics similar functions often found in biology, results from variations in mechanical properties of the soft robotic body that cause it to strain to different degrees when stress is applied with the fluid. In this work, we outline a mechanics- and optimization-based approach that enables the automatic selection of mechanical properties of a fiber-reinforced soft actuator to match the kinematic trajectory of the fingers or thumb during a grasping operation. This methodology can be readily extended to other applications that require mimicking or assisting biological motions.</jats:p>

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