Soft actuators offer great versatility in terms of design and applications. Their compliance affords them greater dexterity as compared to rigid structures, and also permits the possibility to adapt their shape as per need. However compliance makes it difficult for them to sustain loads. As a step towards resolving this conundrum, a low melting point alloy based stiffening methodology is proposed to be integrated with a soft actuator designed for minimally invasive surgical use. This integration not only increases the load capacity but also helps motion control by selectively rigidifying parts of the actuator. The actuator design may be tweaked by using FEM based models, with a possibility to increase the overall stiffness up to 30 times.
Controllable Multibending Soft Actuator for Surgical Applications
Abidi,H
;Menciassi, A;Cianchetti, M
2018-01-01
Abstract
Soft actuators offer great versatility in terms of design and applications. Their compliance affords them greater dexterity as compared to rigid structures, and also permits the possibility to adapt their shape as per need. However compliance makes it difficult for them to sustain loads. As a step towards resolving this conundrum, a low melting point alloy based stiffening methodology is proposed to be integrated with a soft actuator designed for minimally invasive surgical use. This integration not only increases the load capacity but also helps motion control by selectively rigidifying parts of the actuator. The actuator design may be tweaked by using FEM based models, with a possibility to increase the overall stiffness up to 30 times.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
