Bending analysis of a soft pneumatic actuator using analytical and numerical methods

Soft bending actuators have applications in many areas where it is required to have compliant and safer interaction to deal with delicate objects. Soft bending actuators are being used in soft robots and in wearable medical devices for rehabilitation. Soft bending actuators are generally actuated using pneumatic air pressure because it provides cleaner, simple and safer operations while dealing with delicate objects and human. For efficient control of a soft pneumatic actuator (SPA), it is essential to have its mathematical model which directly affects the design criteria. The analytical modeling of such highly flexible and compliant SPA is challenging due to nonlinearity in the geometrical and material properties. This study focuses on the analytical modeling of a SPA for analyzing its bending behavior under application of the input pneumatic pressure. The estimated bending results of the analytical model are compared and verified with the numerical method i.e., finite element analysis (FEA). The bending results obtained from the analytical model showed high error when compared with the FEA results. Therefore, in this work, the analytical model is modified by using a linear correction term in the model. As a result of that, the error between the analytical and the numerical methods is significantly reduced. [copyright information to be updated in production process]