TY - GEN
T1 - What Happens When Pneu-Net Soft Robotic Actuators Get Fatigued?
AU - Libby, Jacqueline
AU - Somwanshi, Aniket A.
AU - Stancati, Federico
AU - Tyagi, Gayatri
AU - Patel, Aadit
AU - Bhatt, Naigam
AU - Rizzo, John Ross
AU - Atashzar, S. Farokh
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 IEEE.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Soft actuators have attracted a great deal of interest in the context of rehabilitative and assistive robots for increasing safety and lowering costs as compared to rigid-body robotic systems. During actuation, soft actuators experience high levels of deformation, which can lead to microscale fractures in their elastomeric structure, which fatigues the system over time and eventually leads to macroscale damages and eventually failure. This paper reports finite element modeling (FEM) of pneu-nets at high angles, along with repetitive experimentation at high deformation rates, in order to study the effect and behavior of fatigue in soft robotic actuators, which would result in deviation from the ideal behavior. Comparing the FEM model and experimental data, we show that FEM can model the performance of the actuator before fatigue to a bending angle of 167° with 96% accuracy. We also show that the FEM model performance will drop to 80% due to fatigue after repetitive high-angle bending. The results of this paper objectively highlight the emergence of fatigue over cyclic activation of the system and the resulting deviation from the computational FEM model. Such behavior can be considered in future controllers to adapt the system with time-variable and non-autonomous response dynamics of soft robots.
AB - Soft actuators have attracted a great deal of interest in the context of rehabilitative and assistive robots for increasing safety and lowering costs as compared to rigid-body robotic systems. During actuation, soft actuators experience high levels of deformation, which can lead to microscale fractures in their elastomeric structure, which fatigues the system over time and eventually leads to macroscale damages and eventually failure. This paper reports finite element modeling (FEM) of pneu-nets at high angles, along with repetitive experimentation at high deformation rates, in order to study the effect and behavior of fatigue in soft robotic actuators, which would result in deviation from the ideal behavior. Comparing the FEM model and experimental data, we show that FEM can model the performance of the actuator before fatigue to a bending angle of 167° with 96% accuracy. We also show that the FEM model performance will drop to 80% due to fatigue after repetitive high-angle bending. The results of this paper objectively highlight the emergence of fatigue over cyclic activation of the system and the resulting deviation from the computational FEM model. Such behavior can be considered in future controllers to adapt the system with time-variable and non-autonomous response dynamics of soft robots.
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U2 - 10.1109/ISMR57123.2023.10130227
DO - 10.1109/ISMR57123.2023.10130227
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85161899385
T3 - 2023 International Symposium on Medical Robotics, ISMR 2023
BT - 2023 International Symposium on Medical Robotics, ISMR 2023
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2023 International Symposium on Medical Robotics, ISMR 2023
Y2 - 19 April 2023 through 21 April 2023
ER -