Pouch Motors: Printable/inflatable soft actuators for robotics

We propose a new family of fluidic soft actuators called Pouch Motors. The pouch motors are developed to create printable actuators for enhancing mass-fabrication of robots from sheet materials using easily accessible tools. The pouch motor consists of one or more gas-tight bladders (called pouches) fabricated by heat bonding. We developed two types of actuators from inflatable pouches: the linear pouch motor and the rotational pouch motor. Our theoretical analysis predicts the static force-length and moment-angle relationships of these actuators under pressure control. We compare the theoretical bounds with actual results achieved using several fabricated devices. We developed a fabrication process of pouch motors using a heat stamping technique that allows mass-manufacturing. We also demonstrate three robot bodies with embedded pouch motors: a parallel gripper, a robotic arm with antagonistic actuation, and legged walking robot with a self-contained miniature pneumatic system.