College of Mechanical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400030, People's Republic of China.
Bioinspir Biomim. 2019 Mar 8;14(3):036009. doi: 10.1088/1748-3190/ab04d1.
Compared with rigid grippers, soft grippers show fantastic adaptability and flexibility in grasping irregularly shaped and fragile objects. However, the low stiffness of the soft actuator limits the scope of applications. Particle jamming has emerged as an important method to adjust the stiffness of soft grippers. This paper proposes a novel particle jamming mechanism based on the differential pressure drive. With the differential drive particle jamming mechanism, a soft actuator is designed, which is characterized by a dual-deformable chamber structure in which one chamber is filled with particles. The simultaneous inflation of the two chambers will result in the bending behavior without significant stiffening. However, if the air chamber is pressurized with a larger pressure, the differential pressure will cause the particles inside the particle chamber to jam each other, which increases the stiffness of the actuator significantly. Thus, the differential drive particle jamming mechanism can achieve the independent control of the stiffness and the bending angle. Both theoretical and experimental studies in this area have shown that the gripper based on the differential drive particle jamming mechanism can stiffen itself effectively, and achieve the independent control of the stiffness and the bending angle, which can be adopted in applications where both high stiffness and dexterity are required.
与刚性夹持器相比，软夹持器在夹持不规则形状和易碎物体时表现出了极好的适应性和灵活性。然而，软致动器的低刚度限制了其应用范围。颗粒阻塞已成为调节软夹持器刚度的一种重要方法。本文提出了一种基于压差驱动的新型颗粒阻塞机构。利用差动驱动颗粒阻塞机构，设计了一种软致动器，其特点是采用双可变形腔结构，其中一个腔充满了颗粒。两个腔同时充气会导致弯曲行为，而不会显著增加刚度。然而，如果向气腔施加更大的压力，则压差会导致颗粒室内的颗粒相互阻塞，从而使致动器的刚度显著增加。因此，差动驱动颗粒阻塞机构可以实现刚度和弯曲角度的独立控制。该领域的理论和实验研究都表明，基于差动驱动颗粒阻塞机构的夹持器可以有效地增强自身的刚度，并实现刚度和弯曲角度的独立控制，可应用于需要高刚度和灵活性的场合。
