Development of a ‘Calf Muscle Pump’ Inspired Reconfigurable Soft Pump Module Using Permanent Magnetic Elastomer

Soft robots with intrinsic softness are expected to be used for delicate object manipulation and/or human-collaborative applications. However, fluidic-driven soft actuators need a pump system with a pump, compressor, tube, and valves, which makes the system bulky and rigid. Some researchers developed built-in centralized fluidic pumps for soft robots, but the output performance is limited since their specifications and carried energy are fixed. To enable the pump system to be soft and increase the output performance, we propose a decentralized reconfigurable soft pump module using permanent magnetic elastomers (PME). With this soft smart material, the system can be fully soft. Inspired by the ‘calf muscle pump,’ our soft pump module can be freely reconfigured to squeeze the working fluid and increase the flowrate as an additional power source. We designed the structure of the module, built the modelling, and conducted various experiments to verify its feasibility. We confirmed that the module can generate force up to 12.76 N and flowrate about 3.74 ml/s, which shows its capability to convey working fluid. After being attached to the soft tube, with sequence control, the reconfigured pump can generate peristaltic motion and convey the working fluid. The success of the pump module indicates its possibility used for increasing the output performance of the soft robots.