Cable Pneumatic Robot: Fabrication and Simulation

Abstract

This article presents an integrated fabrication and simulation framework for a cable pneumatic soft robot system capable of dexterous motions and complex functions. These cable pneumatic robots can harness pneumatic actuation for large shape morphing and utilize cable actuation for superior controllability. We first created a novel and low-cost fabrication method to build the proposed robots, including the soft robot structures and the controller hardware. In parallel, we developed a lumped parameter model to simulate the complex behaviors of cable pneumatic robots. This simulation platform is computationally more efficient than conventional finite element methods because it uses specially derived lumped elements with sparser nodes and less degrees-of-freedom. In addition, we use experiments to show that the model can accurately capture the bending stiffness and the actuation angle of the cable pneumatic robots. Finally, demonstration examples are presented to highlight the capabilities of the proposed robots and the versatility of the simulation. Realistic physical prototypes are presented to show that these robots can execute adaptive grasping motions and handle sophisticated tasks. Computational examples are presented to show that the proposed model can achieve close-to-real-time simulation. More significantly, we can implement cosimulation of cable pneumatic robots and the inverse kinematics of UR5e cobots by combining the proposed lumped parameter model with existing robotic simulators. Such capabilities enable the proposed simulation to have wide applications for different soft robotic systems.