Flexible Functional Component for Fluidic Soft Robots

In the past few years, inspired by bionics, soft robots have become an emerging research topic in the field of robotics. Currently, almost all pneumatic soft robots rely on hard valves or electronic controls, traditionally air compressor drives, which greatly limit the soft robot from becoming fully flexible. In order to achieve the fully flexible of the soft robots, three different types of flexible functional devices were designed and fabricated. Soft valves were used to control soft robots, soft pumps work as flexible power devices to provide power source as well as flexible pistons work as flexible output devices which enhance the output of soft robot. Finally, by integrating the above-mentioned flexible functional devices, a time-delay control system was purposed and eliminated the need for hard valves, hard pumps and electronic control to achieve a fully soft and intelligent soft robotic system.