Controllable Multibending Soft Actuator for Surgical Applications

Konferenz: ACTUATOR 2018 - 16th International Conference on New Actuators
25.06.2018 - 27.06.2018 in Bremen, Deutschland

Tagungsband: ACTUATOR 2018

Seiten: 3Sprache: EnglischTyp: PDF

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Autoren:
Abidi, H.; Menciassi, A.; Cianchetti, M. (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pontedera, Italy)
Tonazzini, A.; Floreano, D. (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland)

Inhalt:
Soft actuators offer great versatility in terms of design and applications. Their compliance affords them greater dexterity as compared to rigid structures, and also permits the possibility to adapt their shape as per need. However compliance makes it difficult for them to sustain loads. As a step towards resolving this conundrum, a low melting point alloy based stiffening methodology is proposed to be integrated with a soft actuator designed for minimally invasive surgical use. This integration not only increases the load capacity but also helps motion control by selectively rigidifying parts of the actuator. The actuator design may be tweaked by using FEM based models, with a possibility to increase the overall stiffness up to 30 times.