Incorporate Oblique Muscle Contractions to Strengthen Soft Robots

Abstract

For the state-of-the-art of soft robotics, the current actuation mechanisms cannot produce shear forces, neither are the current stiffening mechanisms adaptive to various deformations. Consequently, the soft robots gain strength at the price of losing flexibility. To fill this gap, we proposed a new mechanism based on the muscle arrangements and incompressible property identified in biological hydrostatic skeletons. Beside longitudinal and transverse muscles, the proposed mechanism includes the oblique arrangement which is proved to play an indispensable role of producing shear forces. The effectiveness of the new mechanism is demonstrated through a benchmark problem - carrying a distributed load at the initial horizontal configuration, thus indicating an improved direction to realise shape-independent load-carrying capability of soft robotics. Furthermore, the proposed mechanism may explain how elephants coordinate the two contradicting properties, strength and flexibility, during their trunk manipulations.