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Hauptverfasser: Meng, Canqi, Bai, Weibang
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.12320
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author Meng, Canqi
Bai, Weibang
author_facet Meng, Canqi
Bai, Weibang
contents Conventional soft pneumatic actuators, typically based on hollow elastomeric chambers, often suffer from small structural support and require costly geometry-specific redesigns for multimodal functionality. Porous materials such as foam, filled into chambers, can provide structural stability for the actuators. However, methods to achieve programmable deformation by tailoring the porous body itself remain underexplored. In this paper, a novel design method is presented to realize soft porous actuators with programmable deformation by incising specific patterns into the porous foam body. This approach introduces localized structural anisotropy of the foam guiding the material's deformation under a global vacuum input. Furthermore, three fundamental patterns on a cylindrical foam substrate are discussed: transverse for bending, longitudinal for tilting, and diagonal for twisting. A computational model is built with Finite Element Analysis (FEA), to investigate the mechanism of the incision-patterning method. Experiments demonstrate that with a potential optimal design of the pattern array number N, actuators can achieve bending up to $80^{\circ}$ (N=2), tilting of $18^{\circ}$ (N=1), and twisting of $115^{\circ}$ (N=8). The versatility of our approach is demonstrated via pattern transferability, scalability, and mold-less rapid prototyping of complex designs. As a comprehensive application, we translate the human hand crease map into a functional incision pattern, creating a bio-inspired soft robot hand capable of human-like adaptive grasping. Our work provides a new, efficient, and scalable paradigm for the design of multi-functional soft porous robots.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_12320
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Programmable Deformation Design of Porous Soft Actuator through Volumetric-Pattern-Induced Anisotropy
Meng, Canqi
Bai, Weibang
Robotics
Conventional soft pneumatic actuators, typically based on hollow elastomeric chambers, often suffer from small structural support and require costly geometry-specific redesigns for multimodal functionality. Porous materials such as foam, filled into chambers, can provide structural stability for the actuators. However, methods to achieve programmable deformation by tailoring the porous body itself remain underexplored. In this paper, a novel design method is presented to realize soft porous actuators with programmable deformation by incising specific patterns into the porous foam body. This approach introduces localized structural anisotropy of the foam guiding the material's deformation under a global vacuum input. Furthermore, three fundamental patterns on a cylindrical foam substrate are discussed: transverse for bending, longitudinal for tilting, and diagonal for twisting. A computational model is built with Finite Element Analysis (FEA), to investigate the mechanism of the incision-patterning method. Experiments demonstrate that with a potential optimal design of the pattern array number N, actuators can achieve bending up to $80^{\circ}$ (N=2), tilting of $18^{\circ}$ (N=1), and twisting of $115^{\circ}$ (N=8). The versatility of our approach is demonstrated via pattern transferability, scalability, and mold-less rapid prototyping of complex designs. As a comprehensive application, we translate the human hand crease map into a functional incision pattern, creating a bio-inspired soft robot hand capable of human-like adaptive grasping. Our work provides a new, efficient, and scalable paradigm for the design of multi-functional soft porous robots.
title Programmable Deformation Design of Porous Soft Actuator through Volumetric-Pattern-Induced Anisotropy
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.12320