Description
Soft Robotics offers an opportunity to fabricate more adaptable systems to be used outside industrial areas. For practical applications of soft robots, their active parts should achieve high forces and considerable displacements, keeping the structures lightweight, modular, and easy to fabricate. Consequently, robust and predictable motion actuators with easy manufacture are required. This paper applies the origami concept to address a 3D printed low-weight modular soft pneumatic linear actuator denoted ORI-Structure. The presented structure has a high contraction rate (up to 52.5%) and can lift 1161.64x its weight. Additionally, we present a more complex module with 3 DOF formed with the ORI-Structure. The module can displace linearly with a high-contraction rate (up to 52.5%), and it can rotate in two axes up to 42°. In both cases, the module exhibits high-lifting capabilities (611.53x its weight). In both cases, simulation and experiments are introduced to describe the design parameters and their performances.
