A Dual Cavity Pleated Structures Soft Pneumatic Actuator for Soft Robotic Applications

The overwhelming popularity and growth in evolution of soft robotics is largely credited to the ever-increasing design and capability portfolio of soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs). Despite the numerous challenges that complicate their modeling and control, viz: geometrical and material nonlinearities, intrinsic dynamic behaviour and diverse control requirements, they have found more application in flexible robots design. To this end, this work presents a design of a novel dual cavity pleated structure soft pneumatic actuator (DCPS-SPA) targeted towards providing enhanced dexterous applications. In order to achieve this, the finite-element model (FEM) of the DCPS-SPA is presented to describe its dynamic behaviour using the Ogden hyperelasticity model parameters. The bending angle and contact force are experimentally validated and compared with the FEM results and a single cavity type SPA, respectively. Experimental results obtained show a promising possibility of utilizing the proposed DCPS-SPA for enhanced dexterous manipulation applications.