Research on design and performance of skeleton type soft actuator

In this paper, a structural design of a skeleton type soft actuator is proposed, which can withstand greater pressure and obtain a larger bending angle and a larger end force compared with the soft actuator without skeleton structure, and is suitable for gripping different kinds of objects. Firstly, this paper introduces the structural model of the skeleton actuator; then, the bending performance and end force of the actuator are predicted by finite element simulation; after that, the skeleton soft actuator is experimentally fabricated, the bending angle and end force are tested, and the simulation and experimental results are compared. Finally, the grasping experimental platform is built to verify the grasping of different shapes and weights of real objects.