Correction to: Soft Pneumatic Actuator Fascicles for High Force and Reliability by Robertson MA, Sadeghi H, Florez JM, Paik J. Soft Robot 2017;4:23–32. DOI: 10.1089/soro.2016.0029

Abstract Individuals with foot drop caused by stroke or cerebral palsy (CP) have a particular need for robotic ankle exoskeleton. This paper proposes an untethered soft robot using an origami actuator to lift the toes of the wearer. The weight, connections, and complex control of the system are reduced through mechanical design. A compact and portable pneumatic system is designed to perform suction and compression with a single pump. The load test of the actuator shows the capability of 300N in 30 kPa. An untethered, simple and affordable robotic ankle exoskeleton is developed with the pneumatic actuator. The wearer can finish its simple 3-step donning procedure within 1 min.

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Modeling of a Soft-Rigid Gripper Actuated by a Linear-Extension Soft Pneumatic Actuator

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21020493 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 493

Author(s):

Peilin Cheng ◽

Jiangming Jia ◽

Yuze Ye ◽

Chuanyu Wu

Keyword(s):

Relative Error ◽

Linear Extension ◽

Pneumatic Actuator ◽

Soft Robot ◽

Soft Actuator ◽

Soft Objects ◽

Contact Sensing ◽

Gripping Force ◽

The Relationship ◽

Extension Length

Soft robot has been one significant study in recent decades and soft gripper is one of the popular research directions of soft robot. In a static gripping system, excessive gripping force and large deformation are the main reasons for damage of the object during the gripping process. For achieving low-damage gripping to the object in static gripping system, we proposed a soft-rigid gripper actuated by a linear-extension soft pneumatic actuator in this study. The characteristic of the gripper under a no loading state was measured. When the pressure was >70 kPa, there was an approximately linear relation between the pressure and extension length of the soft actuator. To achieve gripping force and fingertip displacement control of the gripper without sensors integrated on the finger, we presented a non-contact sensing method for gripping state estimation. To analyze the gripping force and fingertip displacement, the relationship between the pressure and extension length of the soft actuator in loading state was compared with the relationship under a no-loading state. The experimental results showed that the relative error between the analytical gripping force and the measured gripping force of the gripper was ≤2.1%. The relative error between analytical fingertip displacement and theoretical fingertip displacement of the gripper was ≤7.4%. Furthermore, the low damage gripping to fragile and soft objects in static and dynamic gripping tests showed good performance of the gripper. Overall, the results indicated the potential application of the gripper in pick-and-place operations.

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Vacuum technology � Right-angle valve � Dimensions and interfaces for pneumatic actuator

10.3403/30402473 ◽

2020 ◽

Keyword(s):

Pneumatic Actuator ◽

Vacuum Technology

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Flexible push pneumatic actuator with high elongation

Sensors and Actuators A Physical ◽

10.1016/j.sna.2021.112578 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 321 ◽

pp. 112578

Author(s):

Lukasz Fracczak ◽

Maksym Nowak ◽

Katarzyna Koter

Keyword(s):

Pneumatic Actuator ◽

High Elongation

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Advanced soft robot modeling in ChainQueen

Robotica ◽

10.1017/s0263574721000722 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-31

Author(s):

Andrew Spielberg ◽

Tao Du ◽

Yuanming Hu ◽

Daniela Rus ◽

Wojciech Matusik

Keyword(s):

Application Programming Interface ◽

Material Point ◽

Soft Robotics ◽

Soft Robot ◽

Inference Control ◽

Simulation And Optimization ◽

Efficient Simulation ◽

Application Programming ◽

Robot Modeling ◽

Programming Interface

Abstract We present extensions to ChainQueen, an open source, fully differentiable material point method simulator for soft robotics. Previous work established ChainQueen as a powerful tool for inference, control, and co-design for soft robotics. We detail enhancements to ChainQueen, allowing for more efficient simulation and optimization and expressive co-optimization over material properties and geometric parameters. We package our simulator extensions in an easy-to-use, modular application programming interface (API) with predefined observation models, controllers, actuators, optimizers, and geometric processing tools, making it simple to prototype complex experiments in 50 lines or fewer. We demonstrate the power of our simulator extensions in over nine simulated experiments.

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