Differential pressure control of 3D printed soft fluidic actuators

Fluidically actuated soft robots show a great promise for operation in sensitive and unknown environments due to their intrinsic compliance. However, most previous designs use either flow control systems that are noisy, inefficient, sensitive to leaks, and cannot achieve differential pressure (i.e. can only apply either positive or negative pressures with respect to atmospheric), or closed volume control systems that are not adaptable and prohibitively expensive. In this paper, we present a modular, low cost volume control system for differential pressure control of soft actuators. We use this system to actuate three-chamber 3D printed soft robotic modules. For this design, we find a 54% increase in achievable blocked force, and a significant increase in actuator workspace when using differential pressure actuation as compared to the use of only pressure or vacuum. The increased workspace allowed the robot to achieve complex tasks such as writing on a screen with a laser pointer or manipulating fragile objects. Furthermore, we demonstrate a self-healing capability of the combined system by using vacuum to actuate ruptured modules which were no longer responsive to positive pressure.