Abstract
The compliant nature of soft robots provides a safer interaction with humans when compared to rigid robots. Hence, soft robotic devices have increasingly become an area of research for medical applications where patient safety is paramount. However, due to the high flexibility inherent in these devices, their flexural rigidity inhibits their ability to exert sufficient forces. In this work, a new wire jamming mechanism is proposed to selectively change the flexural rigidity of soft robotic instruments and a hybrid robotic prototypes based on this concept is presented. Results showed that this mechanism increased the stiffness by almost five folds. The simplicity of the concept will easily allow further optimization for its potential use in surgical-assist applications.
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Chauhan, S., Guerra, M., De Mel, R. (2019). Selective Stiffening Mechanism for Surgical-Assist Soft Robotic Applications. In: Arai, K., Kapoor, S., Bhatia, R. (eds) Intelligent Systems and Applications. IntelliSys 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 868. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01054-6_55
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01054-6_55
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