A 3D Printable Origami Vacuum Pneumatic Artificial Muscle with Fast and Powerful Motion

Both pneumatic artificial muscles and additive manufacturing have attracted great attention with the development of the robotics industry. In this paper, the authors report on the design, fabrication, and experiments of a 3D printable origami vacuum-driven pneumatic artificial muscle with a simple, low-cost, and easily replicable structure. The proposed artificial muscle requires low vacuum pressure and can achieve a 62% contraction ratio due to the origami structure. The structure is printed by the soft TPE material with a small volume and enhanced by thin inner support rings, which prompt the entire folding process can be finished within 0.18 s without radial expansion or contraction. It processes a low self-weight of 15 g and can lift up a 3 kg load that is 200 times its self-weight. A prototype is built based on the proposed fabrication method, on which the validation experiments are conducted. The experimental results prove the satisfied capabilities of the proposed artificial muscle. Since the chamber can be easily printed by a commercial 3D printer with a single nozzle in a single step and the inner support rings are easy to be assembled, everyone can build the artificial muscle following the rapid prototype methods introduced in this paper with a 3D printer.