Concepts and simulations of a soft robot mimicking human tongue

The structure of a novel soft robot which can mimic a few movements of human tongue was designed with a series of embedded chambers using pneumatic actuation pattern. Two silicone materials (Ecoflex 0030 and PDMS) were chosen to fabricate the body of the robot. FEM simulations have been carried out using software Abaqus. Four types of deformation have been achieved in simulation including roll, groove, elongation and twist when different combinations of chambers were pressurized with the same pressure of 17 kPa. The relationship between deformation range and structural parameters, the pressure in each chamber was also discovered during simulation.