Design and implementation of variable stiffness rigid-soft coupling pneumatic actuated joint

The soft continuous robot faces the challenges of difficulty in modeling, control and vibration suppression due to the flexibility of its main constituent materials. In order to solve these challenges of soft continuous robots, this paper designs a variable stiffness rigid-soft coupling pneumatic drive joint. It is made of variable stiffness rigid frame embedded and pneumatic soft joints. The variable rigid frame can follow the motion without load according to the motion state of the soft joint. The variable stiffness of the skeleton is realized by the negative pressure tightening of the external vacuum bag, and the angle sensor installed in the skeleton can detect the bending angle of the soft joint. The variable stiffness rigid-soft coupling pneumatic drive joint can increase the stiffness compared with a soft joint without a variable stiffness skeleton.