Simulation and fabrication of a pneumatic network actuator with capability of bending in multi-planes

Due to the advantages of softness and body compliance, the soft actuator made by elastic silicone rubber provides attractive potential in the flexible manipulation fields, such as hand rehabilitation for stroke and adaptive grip in food sorting industry. The multi-direction bending capability is one of the most desired features for applying soft actuator to gripping and manipulation. However, most of the existing soft actuators can only perform bending motion in one plane, which limits its potential application in many fields, such as the wrist rehabilitation. In this paper, a new type of multi-directional bending soft pneumatic actuator is proposed, which can bend in two vertical planes. The fabrication and structure are provided to describe its bending principle in different planes. The specially designed pneumatic network structure brings the small inner dampness which results in great bending angle in the different plane under small inlet pressure. Furthermore, the design principle is validated by experiment. This feature of such type of actuator provides a new idea for the design of soft rehabilitation exoskeleton.