DESIGN SPACE ENUMERATIONS FOR PNEUMATICALLY ACTUATED SOFT CONTINUUM MANIPULATORS

Evan Ripperger, Girish Krishnan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Pneumatically actuated soft continuum manipulators (SCMs) are constructed by combining several extending or contracting fiber reinforced elastomeric enclosure (FREE) actuators in series, parallel and a combination thereof. While it is well known that architectures with serial combinations of FREEs yield large workspace and dexterity, they suffer from design and control complexity, increased number of valves and inertia. Recent advances in exploring the FREE design space has demonstrated using parallel combinations of dissimilar FREEs (bending and rotating) to improve workspace and dexterity. This paper presents a comprehensive investigation of SCM design architectures by enumerating possibilities of serial and parallel combinations of similar and dissimilar FREEs. A novel dexterity metric is proposed to enable objective comparison of different SCM designs based on shape similarity and end-effector tangent. Given a fixed resource of control inputs (actuator and valve inputs), the paper systematically selects the best architecture of the SCM (serial, parallel, similar or dissimilar FREE) that maximizes dexterity and workspace. It is seen that optimal designs are heavily dependent on the context of the application, which may change how these manipulators are deployed. The paper presents two practical design applications that demonstrate the usefulness of the enumeration framework. While in general, serial design combinations using symmetric bending actuators result in larger workspace and dexterity, some architectures with asymmetric combinations of FREEs may see similar levels of dexterity and workspace.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication47th Mechanisms and Robotics Conference (MR)
PublisherAmerican Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
ISBN (Electronic)9780791887363
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023
EventASME 2023 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, IDETC-CIE 2023 - Boston, United States
Duration: Aug 20 2023Aug 23 2023

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference
Volume8

Conference

ConferenceASME 2023 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, IDETC-CIE 2023
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityBoston
Period8/20/238/23/23

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
  • Computer Science Applications

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