Affiliations: [a]
Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou Henan, China
| [b] Zhengzhou Key Laboratory of Agricultural Equipment Intelligent Design and Green Manufacturing, College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China
| [c] Zhengzhou Key Laboratory of Agricultural Biomimetic Materials and Low Carbon Technology, College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China
| [d] Fengjie Branch of Chongqing Branch of China Tobacco Corporation, Chongqing, China
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author. Liang Wang, School of Henan Agricultural University wangliang@henau.edu.cn
Note: [] Co-first author (These authors contributed equally to this work): Hui Tian, Zhujun Zhang, Zhihua Yuan, Xiaochan Liu.
Abstract: In view of the problems of low stiffness, small driving force and large balloon effect existing in the current soft actuator, this paper proposes an optimization method to enhance the overall stiffness of the soft gripper by using rigid components based on the multi-cavity soft pneumatic actuator. This paper introduces the main components of the actuator: the soft part poured by liquid silica gel, and the open rectangular rigid structures by 3D printed. The kinematics model of the finger is established based on the Piecewise Constant Curvature model(PCC). The bending performance of the enhanced stiffness gripper is verified by finite element analysis(FEA): the tip force of actuator increased with the increase of the number of rigid structures when the bending angle is constant. According to the and experimental data, the overall stiffness of soft gripper is increased by the rigid structure without affecting the flexibility of operation. And the maximum weight which can grasp is 3.4 times that of the traditional soft gripper, improved the grasping range of the soft gripper effectively.
