Potnik Valentina, Frediani Gabriele, Carpi Federico
Biomedical Engineering Unit, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Florence, 50121 Florence, Italy.
IRCCS Fondazione don Carlo Gnocchi ONLUS, 50143 Florence, Italy.
Biomimetics (Basel). 2024 Mar 15;9(3):177. doi: 10.3390/biomimetics9030177.
Wearable mechatronics for powered orthoses, exoskeletons and prostheses require improved soft actuation systems acting as 'artificial muscles' that are capable of large strains, high stresses, fast response and self-sensing and that show electrically safe operation, low specific weight and large compliance. Among the diversity of soft actuation technologies under investigation, pneumatic devices have been the focus, during the last couple of decades, of renewed interest as an intrinsically soft artificial muscle technology, due to technological advances stimulated by applications in soft robotics. As of today, quite a few solutions are available to endow a pneumatic soft device with linear actuation and self-sensing ability, while also easily achieving these features with off-the-shelf materials and low-cost fabrication processes. Here, we describe a simple process to make self-sensing pneumatic actuators, which may be used as 'inverse artificial muscles', as, upon pressurisation, they elongate instead of contracting. They are made of an elastomeric tube surrounded by a plastic coil, which constrains radial expansions. As a novelty relative to the state of the art, the self-sensing ability was obtained with a piezoresistive stretch sensor shaped as a conductive elastomeric body along the tube's central axis. Moreover, we detail, also by means of video clips, a step-by-step manufacturing process, which uses off-the-shelf materials and simple procedures, so as to facilitate reproducibility.
用于动力矫形器、外骨骼和假肢的可穿戴机电一体化设备需要改进的软驱动系统，作为“人造肌肉”，能够承受大应变、高应力、快速响应和自我感知，并具备电气安全操作、低比重和高柔顺性。在正在研究的各种软驱动技术中，气动装置在过去几十年里一直是人们重新关注的焦点，作为一种本质上柔软的人造肌肉技术，这得益于软机器人应用所推动的技术进步。截至目前，有不少解决方案可使气动软设备具备线性驱动和自我感知能力，同时还能通过现成材料和低成本制造工艺轻松实现这些特性。在此，我们描述一种制造自我感知气动致动器的简单方法，这种致动器可作为“反向人造肌肉”，因为在加压时它们会伸长而非收缩。它们由一个弹性管和围绕其的塑料线圈组成，塑料线圈可限制径向膨胀。相对于现有技术而言的新颖之处在于，自我感知能力是通过一个沿管中心轴形状为导电弹性体的压阻式拉伸传感器实现的。此外，我们还通过视频片段详细介绍了一个逐步制造过程，该过程使用现成材料和简单程序，以促进可重复性。
