Traditional rigid robots face significant challenges in congested and tight environments, including bulky size, maneuverability, and safety limitations. Thus, soft continuum robots, inspired by the incredible capabilities of biological appendages such as octopus arms, starfish, and worms, have shown promising performance in complex environments due to their compliance, adaptability, and safety. Different actuation techniques are implemented in soft continuum robots to achieve a smoothly bending backbone, including cable-driven actuators, pneumatic actuators, and hydraulic actuation systems. However, designing and developing efficient actuation mechanisms, motion planning approaches, and control algorithms are challenging due to the high degree of redundancy and non-linearity of soft continuum robots. This article profoundly reviews the merits and drawbacks of soft robots' actuation systems concerning their applications to provide the readers with a brief review reference to explore the recent development of soft robots' actuation mechanisms technology. Moreover, the authors have surveyed the recent review studies in controller design of continuum robots as a guidance for future applications. 

/pdf/recent-developments-of-actuation-mechanisms-for-continuum-jlnoshqs.pdf

Recent Developments of Actuation Mechanisms for Continuum Robots: A Review

Soft robotic gloves have attracted significant interest in hand rehabilitation in the past decade. However, current solutions are still heavy and lack finger-state monitoring and versatile treatment options. To address this, we present a lightweight soft robotic glove actuated by twisted string actuators (TSA) that provides whole-hand finger motion tracking. We have developed a virtual reality environment for hand rehabilitation training, allowing users to interact with various virtual objects. Fifteen small inertial measurement units are placed on the glove to predict finger joint angles and track whole-hand finger motion. We performed TSA experiments to identify design and control rules, by understanding how their response varies with input load and voltages. Grasping experiments were conducted to determine the grasping force and range of motion. Finally, we showcase an application of the rehabilitation glove in a Unity-based VR interface, which can actuate the operator’s fingers to grasp different virtual objects.

Lightweight Soft Robotic Glove with Whole-Hand Finger Motion Tracking for Hand Rehabilitation in Virtual Reality

Bleeding contour detection for craniotomy

All of oral surgeries are accompanied by bleeding. Manual removal of blood is carried out by a nurse and dozens of repetitive blood suction operations are implemented by the nurse during a single oral surgery. In our previous work, a robot for removal of blood-water mixed liquid is designed. However, the robot requires an initial order to autonomous removal of blood mixed liquid. In this paper, a hand gesture control method for typical operations of the robot is developed. Gesture dataset are developed at first and a deep learning neural network is trained for detection of hand gesture. The gesture control procedures for four typical operations are provided in detail. In a group of experiments, it’s demonstrated that an oral surgeon controls the robot’s motion by presenting prescribed hand gesture. The proposed method could be an alternative manner for blood mixed liquid removal. 

Gesture Control Method for Oral Blood Mixed Liquid Removal Robot*

Soft actuators and robotic devices designed for rehabilitation and assistance are a rapidly growing field of research. Their inherent flexibility enhances comfort and usability without restricting the user's natural range of motion. However, despite these advantages, there are still several challenges that need to be addressed before these systems can be commercialized. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the latest developments in soft wearable robots, also known as exosuits. Soft exosuits are composed of two main components: actuation mechanisms (how forces/torques are generated) and physical interfaces (how and where the robot is anchored to the body). This paper reviews the advances in these two areas, while categorizing exosuits based on the intended assisted joint, assisted degrees of freedom (DOF), and device type. The systematic literature review follows the PRISMA guidelines to summarize the relevant studies and investigate their related physical interface, actuation mechanism and its design. Several limitations were identified in these areas, and insights into potential future research directions are presented. In the future, the goal should be to develop an untethered assistive device that can provide assistance to multiple joints while having a low form factor, an intuitive and natural interface, and being comfortable for the user. 

Advancements in Soft Wearable Robots: A Systematic Review of Actuation Mechanisms and Physical Interfaces

Continuum robot is with better flexibility and manipulability compared to traditional rigid multiple joints robot in operating in confined flexuose space. Among continuum robots, tendon-driven robot with compressible and extensible length has bigger working space than that of the non-extensible robot, though both of them can travel along the nonlinear spatial curved path. However, for the existing extensible robots, they realize extensible action based a pre-compression action, i.e., not from the natural no-load status for elastic components, like springs. This type of designs imposes restrictions on the length of the whole robot. In this paper, we present a novel tendon-driven continuum robot with extensible length from the natural no-load status for elastic components to overcome this limitation. The main contribution of our work is that the new design achieves extension based on extension of nitinol alloy super elastic bar from natural no-load status. Therefore, continuum robot based on this new design shows deeper reachability in natural orifices. Kinematic model of the proposed robot is derived and the workspace of the robot is demonstrated for one and two bending modules. A prototypical robot is built and its contractible and extensible performance is illustrated through experiments. This type of continuum robot may be useful in diagnosis and therapies for clinical scenarios, like laparoscopic surgeries and natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES).

Extensible and Compressible Continuum Robot: A Preliminary Result

Soft robots are compliant, impact resistant, and relatively safe in comparison to hard robots. However, the development of untethered soft robots is still a major challenge because soft legs cannot effectively support the power and control systems. Most untethered soft robots apply a crawling or walking gait, which limits their locomotion speed and mobility. This paper presents an untethered soft robot that can move with a bioinspired dynamic trotting gait. The robot is driven by inflatable soft legs designed on the basis of the pre-charged pneumatic (PCP) actuation principle. Experimental results demonstrate that the developed robot can trot stably with the fastest speed of 23 cm/s (0.97 body length per second) and can trot over different terrains (slope, step, rough terrain, and natural terrains). The robotic dog can hold up to a 5.5 kg load in the static state and can carry up to 1.5 kg in the trotting state. Without any rigid components inside the legs, the developed robotic dog exhibits resistance to large impacts, i.e., after withstanding a 73 kg adult (46 times its body mass), the robotic dog can stand up and continue its trotting gait. This innovative robotic system has great potential in equipment inspection, field exploration, and disaster rescue.

An Untethered Soft Robotic Dog Standing and Fast Trotting with Jointless and Resilient Soft Legs

Advances in 3D and 4D Printing of Soft Robotics and Their Applications

The compliance of conventional granular jamming universal grippers is limited due to the increasing friction among particles when enveloping an object. This property limits the applications of such grippers. In this paper, we propose a fluidic-based approach for universal gripper which has a much higher compliance compared to conventional granular jamming universal grippers. The fluid is made of micro-particles suspended in liquid. Jamming transition of the dense granular suspension fluid from a fluid (hydrodynamic interactions) to solid-like state (frictional contacts) in the gripper is achieved by external pressure from the inflation of an airbag. The basic jamming mechanism and theoretical analysis of the proposed fluid is investigated, and a prototype universal gripper based on the fluid is developed. The proposed universal gripper exhibits advantageous compliance and grasping robustness in sample grasping of delicate objects, such as plants and sponge objects, where the traditional granular jamming universal gripper fails.

/pdf/investigation-of-fluidic-universal-gripper-for-delicate-krnkguug.pdf

Investigation of Fluidic Universal Gripper for Delicate Object Manipulation

Layflat tube (LFT) is a soft tube that is pressed flat for easy winding onto a spool and continuous use. When inflating an LFT, the width of the FLT will contract, and the flat side of the FLT will expand. Based on this feature, a layflat tube-based pneumatic bending actuator (LFTPBA) is proposed and used for finger actuation in soft robotic glove design. Five LFTPBAs are mounted on a fabric glove to assist finger flexion. To eliminate noise and vibration of a normal pump system, a bellow actuation method is proposed. The finger flexion angle and bending speed can be controlled by motors directly. A mathematical model is developed to investigate the relationship between the LFTPBA flexion angle and bellow compression displacement. Besides, a finite element analysis of the LFTPBA bending trajectory versus pressure increase is also conducted. Compared with a fabric-based pneumatic bending actuator, the proposed system can generate 57% more blocked tip force (from 9 N to 14.13 N). A prototype assistive glove has been developed to demonstrate various grasping operations via a hand model. 

A Pumpless Layflat Tube-Based Pneumatic Bending Actuator for Soft Assistive Glove

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