Perpustakaan Digital ITB

Fabric-based manipulators have gained significant attention due to their advantages compared to the more commonly used rubbery materials. One design approach of bending soft robot manipulators involves the use of asymmetric extension through structural geometry. Unfortunately, they have a notable disadvantage as their bending deformation is largely fixed on the designed asymmetry of the manipulator, limiting the manipulator’s ability to position to specific angles without altering its initial design. This research explores a novel approach for bending angle control of such manipulators. The design used in this research was a manipulator made up of a parallel combination of a chamber with no grooves to induce a straightening deformation and another with straight grooves to induce bending. Two manipulators of this design were constructed, varying in number of segments and rotation angle per joint to see the effect of these variables. Tests in this research included experiments proving the manipulator’s angle control, examining how variations in design and pressure affected the controllability and motion, and measuring the manipulator’s stiffness in varying pressure combinations. The experiment results confirmed that angle control of the bending fabric-based manipulator with asymmetric geometric structures is achievable through various pressure combinations. The rotation angles in each joint played a significant role in its motion, especially during straightening from a fully bent state where larger rotation angles were much harder to control than smaller ones in these conditions. Additionally, variable stiffness could be achieved at various angles as long the pressure combinations resulted in force equilibrium.