Colloquia

Summary

Mechanical solutions to restore or even enhance human gait are becoming more prevalent than ever before. This is achieved by a wide variety of different solutions highly dependent on the exact application. Recently the focus of a lot of research has shifted from stiff mechanical actuators to soft solutions, to lower weight and rigidity, increase comfort and simplify control strategies.

In this thesis a novel design is explored to reduce the air consumption of a pneumatic soft inflatable actuator, while achieving similar levels of force output. This is achieved by changing the shape of current soft inflatable actuators, which is an inflatable pouch, to a hollow cylinder. Removing the inner portion of the inflatable actuator reduces volume significantly, while only having a minor impact on the output force. The performed research consists of investigating possible manufacturing processes for the creation of the prototypes, theoretical calculations to support the design change and experimental data to prove the validity of the theoretical calculations.

The achieved results match with the theoretical model closely for axial loading, however the design change does not result in an increased performance per unit air consumed. In a transverse loading application significant improvements per unit air consumed are observed at all tested pressures. This matches with the conclusion from the theoretical model, however there are relatively large deviations between the exact values from the theoretical model and the experimental results, which requires further research.