Somatosensitive inverse artificial muscle for wearable robots

IF 4.1 3区工程技术 Q2 ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC

Sensors and Actuators A-physical Pub Date : 2025-03-17 DOI:10.1016/j.sna.2025.116475

Junlin Ma , Xianglin Zhang , Zihan Zeng , Jie Wei , Yaohui Zhu , Zhe Liu , Yongkang Jiang , Diansheng Chen

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Soft robotics have demonstrated significant potential in rehabilitation and wearable devices, attributed to their intrinsic compliance and safe interaction with humans. However, developing soft wearable robots with large deformation to assist the movement of human joints and simultaneously sensing the deformation remains challenging. This paper introduces a novel design of a type of compact somatosensitive inverse artificial muscle (SIAM) by directly coating sensing elements on the surface of soft actuators. We provided a theoretical model and conducted finite element simulations to analyze the impact of various parameters on the resistance of the proposed SIAM, and verified the model experimentally. Preliminary results show that the proposed SIAM is able to perform 200 % elongation with real-time length feedback. The maximum and minimum resistance of the SIAM changed by less than 5 % even after over 1000 working cycles. We further validated the effectiveness of the proposed SIAM on wearable robots in two working scenarios: elbow flexion rehabilitation and wrist flexion rehabilitation with the reduction of corresponding muscles’ activation levels from 100 % to 22.2 % and 24.3 %, respectively. Meanwhile, the SIAM could detect the joint angles with a maximum error of 2 degrees. This work provides an alternative design for soft wearable robots with high-fidelity and endurable sensing abilities.

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来源期刊

Sensors and Actuators A-physical 工程技术-工程：电子与电气

CiteScore

8.10

自引率

6.50%

发文量

630

审稿时长

49 days

期刊介绍： Sensors and Actuators A: Physical brings together multidisciplinary interests in one journal entirely devoted to disseminating information on all aspects of research and development of solid-state devices for transducing physical signals. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical regularly publishes original papers, letters to the Editors and from time to time invited review articles within the following device areas: • Fundamentals and Physics, such as: classification of effects, physical effects, measurement theory, modelling of sensors, measurement standards, measurement errors, units and constants, time and frequency measurement. Modeling papers should bring new modeling techniques to the field and be supported by experimental results. • Materials and their Processing, such as: piezoelectric materials, polymers, metal oxides, III-V and II-VI semiconductors, thick and thin films, optical glass fibres, amorphous, polycrystalline and monocrystalline silicon. • Optoelectronic sensors, such as: photovoltaic diodes, photoconductors, photodiodes, phototransistors, positron-sensitive photodetectors, optoisolators, photodiode arrays, charge-coupled devices, light-emitting diodes, injection lasers and liquid-crystal displays. • Mechanical sensors, such as: metallic, thin-film and semiconductor strain gauges, diffused silicon pressure sensors, silicon accelerometers, solid-state displacement transducers, piezo junction devices, piezoelectric field-effect transducers (PiFETs), tunnel-diode strain sensors, surface acoustic wave devices, silicon micromechanical switches, solid-state flow meters and electronic flow controllers. Etc...