Design and Modeling of a Bio-Inspired Flexible Joint Actuator

Spiders rely on a hydraulic system to stretch their legs but use muscles make flex. The compound drive of hydraulics and muscle makes an integrate dexterous structure with powerful locomotion abilities, which perfectly meets the primary requirements advanced robots. Inspired by this hydraulics-muscle co-drive joint, novel flexible joint actuator was proposed its driving characteristics were preliminarily explored. bio-inspired manifested as double-constrained balloon actuator, fabricated composite process 3D printing casting. To evaluate performance, mathematical model deduced, well finite element analysis (FEA) model. A series experiments rotation angles, forces, efficiencies carried out compared calculations FEA simulations. results show that accuracy two theoretical models can be used assess actuator. test soft arthropod robot joints also implemented, where moving speed reached 22 mm/s feasibility applied demonstrated.