Research on Driving Performance of Pneumatic Soft Finger

Pneumatic soft hand performs as end effector of soft robotic system, which has the adaptive envelope grasping ability to irregular shape object. The pneumatic soft finger which has good bending motion ability is hard to be fabricated accurately. In this paper, based on a common pneumatic soft finger structure, the research is done on modeling of driving performance for pneumatic soft finger, and stretch ratio and static stiffness models are obtained. At last, stretch ratio and static stiffness are used as evaluation index of driving performance for pneumatic soft finger. Under empty load and static constant load conditions, bending state of pneumatic soft finger can be described by image processing module under different inflation pressures. Modeling analysis and experimental results indicate that stretch ratio has negative correlation with silicone rubber layer thickness and material shear modulus, and static stiffness has positive correlation with stretch ratio. So, the main contribution of our work is to provide references for fabricating pneumatic soft fingers.