Design and Analysis of a Soft Actuator for a Three-legged Soft Robot

Abstract

Due to a multitude of potential applications in safe interaction with human co-workers, soft robotic manipulators have attracted attention from researchers in recent years. However, it is difficult to model a soft robot because of the flexibility of soft materials, which has limited its applications. This paper presents a modelling method for a pneumatic soft actuator based on matrix displacement method. Kinematics of a sample soft actuator is analyzed and the performance of the actuator is tested by experiments. This paper also describes the potential use of the proposed soft actuator in a three-legged soft robot.