Preliminary design of a simplified pneumatic actuator

A major topic of soft robotics is the design of pneumatic actuators made of hyperelastic materials, such as silicone rubber. So far, many efforts have been made in the creation of prototypes, exploiting commercial silicone rubber, mainly to perform manipulation tasks or locomotion. However, there is a lack of methods for the design of such actuators. In this paper, we present the results of a preliminary work, aimed at the development of a method for the synthesis of a single chamber pneumatic actuator. The work is based on the use of finite elements and exploits two different algorithms to find the optimal shape of the actuator such that a prescribed deformation is obtained.