Session: SYMP 6-4: Smart Materials and Actuators

Paper Number: 141441

141441 - Lightweight Fabric-Based Inflatable Hand With Strong Load Capacity Enabled by Shape Memory Polymers 

Inflatable structures are naturally compliant, allowing them to conform their shape when interacting with exterior objects. Such structure is widely used in different industry, such as robotic industry, or energy absorption structure in automotive industry as shown as airbag.  To program an inflatable structure towards a specific shape to mimics our human hand will need advanced control of stiffness in such structure. At same time, to manipulate exterior objects with a completely inflatable soft body structure as our human hand, it is inherently difficult to apply force that conforms to target shapes while at the same time maintains high load capacity. Stiffness modulation technique proves to be an effective method to address this challenge by using stiffness changing material such as electroadhesive clutches or vacuum jamming. In this work, shape memory polymer(SMP) is used as an adds on towards the inflatable hand made from fabric material by using digital ink writing fabrication method. The fabric based inflatable structure shows much lightweight options than the traditional silicon based inflatable structure. In addition to that, the bonding stiffness of the shape memory polymer towards fabric material is characterized towards enhanced integration. To utilize the stiffness changing properties of the SMP, fast heating is preferred for such material. In this study, the conductivity of SMP material is also investigated. A fast actuation is achieved for stiffness change with less than1min. With the application of inflation, the SMP integrated inflatable hand can bend towards specific angle just like human hands, while after the action of the SMP effect, the final shape of inflatable hands can be locked. A systematically study is also conducted to such inflatable hands so that it can mimics the human hands in different application scenario ranging from index finger to middle finger. Such that the complexity of the human hands is modeled. In future, a robotic system can be integrated towards six-axial robotic arm to demonstrate the application of such hand towards complex application environment such as grasping, release, manipulation...also, more dedicated inflatable hands design is preferred so that such hand can achieve twist or bending/twisting. Such inflatable hands can also be applied towards assisted wearable gloves to provide users with added grip force. SMPs programmed in each individual finger allow users to easily adaptive for the desired intensity and threshold. Users can also program the gloves so that certain load capability can be designed towards different users. 

Presenting Author: yuyang song toyota research institute NA

Presenting Author Biography: Dr.Song is senior scientist at Toyota Research Institute of North America. His research varies from lightweight materials, towards programmable structure/material. He had worked with inflatable structure/materials for future research department in Toyota for couple of years.

Authors:

yuyang song
Mingzhe Li