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Reinforced bidirectional artificial muscles: enhancing force and stability for soft robotics

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Abstract

Soft robotics has gained significant interest due to its resemblance to soft organic bodies, enabling direct human interaction. Soft actuators are a crucial component of these soft robots as they enable their motion. This work introduces a comprehensive investigation and experimental results of a reinforced bidirectional artificial muscles (Rbi-AMs) design. In addition to the well-known bellow actuator, we propose the integration of inner and external rings to enhance performance and enable bidirectional operation by using their pressurization or vacuum. To evaluate the performance of these designs, we connected the reinforced bidirectional pneumatic-driven artificial muscles to a tensile testing machine and compared their pulling and pushing forces. Their deformation was also assessed when subjected to varying payloads under pressurization or vacuum. Results indicate that the design with an inner ring outperforms others, achieving a pushing force of 50 N and a strain of 150.54% at 40 kPa, as well as a pulling force of 24 N and a contraction ratio of 49.90% at −40 kPa. To assess applicability, we conducted a robustness evaluation, with the actuators demonstrating durability and readiness for real-life applications after 250 cycles in both directions. The proposed designs exhibit excellent force, strain, and robustness compared to current research in the field. Furthermore, we present a modular system and gripper demonstration, where the actuators collectively create a multi-DOF robotic joint and a gripper that can adapt its grasping range to accommodate objects of varying shapes, sizes, and weight.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning) (No. RS-2023-00207772 and No. 2021R1A2C4001792).

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  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, Republic of Korea

    Altair Coutinho, Sarang Kim & Hugo Rodrigue

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  1. Altair Coutinho
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  3. Hugo Rodrigue
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Correspondence to Hugo Rodrigue.

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Coutinho, A., Kim, S. & Rodrigue, H. Reinforced bidirectional artificial muscles: enhancing force and stability for soft robotics. Intel Serv Robotics 17, 55–66 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11370-023-00487-1

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