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Actuators
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Robot Control in Human-Machine Systems
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Robot Control in Human-Machine Systems

A special issue of Actuators (ISSN 2076-0825). This special issue belongs to the section "Actuators for Robotics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 March 2023) | Viewed by 27012

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Hang Su

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Politenico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Interests: robotics; human-robot interaction; deep learning; bilateral teleoperation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Jing Guo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Automation, Guangdong University of Technology, Panyu District, Guangzhou, China
Interests: surgical robotics; robot-tissue interaction; teleoperation; modelling and control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Isuru S. Godage

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Computing, College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM), DePaul University, Chicago, IL 60614, USA
Interests: soft robot; medical robot; modelling and control
Dr. Yue Chen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
Interests: soft robot; medical robot; image-guided therapy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Soft robotics are robotic systems made of materials that are similar in softness to human soft tissues. Recent technological developments have led to the widespread use of soft robotics systems in a broad range of medical applications, including rehabilitation, surgery, and diagnosis. In order to further advance soft robotic systems in medical applications, it is crucial to understand the current achievements and the technical challenges remaining for soft robots. Hence, this Special Issue intends to gather world-class researchers to present state-of-the-art research achievements and advances that contribute to soft robotics techniques in medical applications.

Dr. Hang Su
Dr. Jing Guo
Dr. Isuru S. Godage
Dr. Yue Chen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Actuators is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • soft robot modeling and simulation
  • soft robot control, soft sensors and soft actuators, soft electronics
  • soft/flexible materials and structures
  • soft robot–human interface
  • soft robot applications in the medical field
  • tissue engineering and biological actuation
  • mechanical intelligence of soft materials
  • sensing techniques for soft systems
  • optimizing soft actuator design and control
  • soft robot systems

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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24 pages, 9053 KiB  
Article
Novel Modularization Design and Intelligent Control of a Multifunctional and Flexible Baby Chair
by Chunhong Zhang, Shuai Huang, Weifeng Shen and Lin Dong
Actuators 2022, 11(7), 186; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/act11070186 - 07 Jul 2022
Viewed by 2139
Abstract
The design and control of baby chairs have attracted great interest due to children’s increasing consumption market. As a human-robot interface, the features of baby chairs, such as their flexibility, comfortableness, safety, etc., are important factors that should be considered. Therefore, in this [...] Read more.
The design and control of baby chairs have attracted great interest due to children’s increasing consumption market. As a human-robot interface, the features of baby chairs, such as their flexibility, comfortableness, safety, etc., are important factors that should be considered. Therefore, in this paper, to provide competent assistance to parents in taking care of their children, we propose a novel design and control scheme for improving children’s living goods and easing parents’ burden. Firstly, a novel modularization design method is introduced to redesign the shape and structure of the baby chair to cater to multifunctional demands. Flexible materials are chosen to adapt to different body shapes for the sake of safety and comfortableness. Moreover, a Cartesian impedance controller enhanced by a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) is proposed to achieve a safe, smooth and accurate control of the baby chair with children sitting on it in various uncertain situations using integrated actuators. Both target posture control and periodic control of the chair are implemented to meet different practical requirements. The feasibility of both the chair design and its control is verified in the MATLAB simulation environment through reference tracking tasks. The experimental results demonstrate that our controller can achieve satisfactory performance by controlling the position error in a reasonable range and keeping the manipulation stable and smooth. With the increasing demand for baby chairs in the global children’s consumption market, we believe that the methodology proposed in this paper will attract more research and industry interest. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robot Control in Human-Machine Systems)
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18 pages, 2136 KiB  
Article
A Novel Design of Water-Activated Variable Stiffness Endoscopic Manipulator with Safe Thermal Insulation
by Qian Gao and Zhenglong Sun
Actuators 2021, 10(6), 130; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/act10060130 - 13 Jun 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3102
Abstract
In natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES), an ideal endoscope platform should be flexible and dexterous enough to go through the natural orifices to access the lesion site inside the human body, and meanwhile provide sufficient rigidity to serve as a base for [...] Read more.
In natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES), an ideal endoscope platform should be flexible and dexterous enough to go through the natural orifices to access the lesion site inside the human body, and meanwhile provide sufficient rigidity to serve as a base for the end-effectors to operate during the surgical tasks. However, the conventional endoscope has limited ability for maintaining high rigidity over the length of the body. This paper presents a novel design of a variable stiffness endoscopic manipulator. By using a new bioplastic named FORMcard, whose stiffness can be thermally adjusted, water at different temperatures is employed to switch the manipulator between rigid mode and flexible mode. A biocompatible microencapsulated phase change material (MEPCM) with latent heat storage properties is adopted as the thermal insulation for better safety. Experiments are conducted to test the concept design, and the validated advantages of our proposed variable stiffness endoscopic manipulator include: shorter mode activation time (25 s), significantly improved stiffness in rigid mode (547.9–926.3 N·cm2) and larger stiffness-adjusting ratio (23.9–25.1 times). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robot Control in Human-Machine Systems)
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12 pages, 3631 KiB  
Article
Modeling and Fabrication of Soft Actuators Based on Fiber-Reinforced Elastomeric Enclosures
by Zhi Chen, Aicheng Zou, Zhantian Qin, Xingguo Han, Tianming Li and Shengkai Liu
Actuators 2021, 10(6), 127; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/act10060127 - 09 Jun 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2758
Abstract
Unlike rigid actuators, soft actuators can easily adapt to complex environments. Understanding the relationship between the deformation of soft actuators and external factors such as pressure would enable rapid designs based on specific requirements, such as flexible, compliant endoscopes. An effective model is [...] Read more.
Unlike rigid actuators, soft actuators can easily adapt to complex environments. Understanding the relationship between the deformation of soft actuators and external factors such as pressure would enable rapid designs based on specific requirements, such as flexible, compliant endoscopes. An effective model is demonstrated that predicts the deformation of a soft actuator based on the virtual work principle and the geometrically exact Cosserat rod theory. The deformation process is analyzed for extension, bending, and twisting modules. A new manufacturing method is then introduced. Through any combination of modules, the soft actuator can have a greater workspace and more dexterity. The proposed model was verified for various fiber-reinforced elastomeric enclosures. There is good agreement between the model analysis and the experimental data, which indicates the effectiveness of the model. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robot Control in Human-Machine Systems)
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22 pages, 2401 KiB  
Article
Control of a Rehabilitation Robotic Device Driven by Antagonistic Soft Actuators
by Haozhen Chi, Hairong Su, Wenyu Liang and Qinyuan Ren
Actuators 2021, 10(6), 123; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/act10060123 - 07 Jun 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3524
Abstract
Stroke is becoming a widely concerned social problem, and robot-assisted devices have made considerable contributions in the training and treatment of rehabilitation. Due to the compliance and continuous deformation capacity, rehabilitation devices driven by soft actuators are attached to widespread attention. Considering the [...] Read more.
Stroke is becoming a widely concerned social problem, and robot-assisted devices have made considerable contributions in the training and treatment of rehabilitation. Due to the compliance and continuous deformation capacity, rehabilitation devices driven by soft actuators are attached to widespread attention. Considering the large output force of pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) and the biological musculoskeletal structure, an antagonistic PAM-driven rehabilitation robotic device is developed. To fulfill the need for control of the proposed device, a knowledge-guided data-driven modeling approach is used and an adaptive feedforward–feedback control approach is presented to ensure the motion accuracy under large deformation motion with high frequency. Finally, several simulations and experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance of the developed system, and the results show that the developed system with the proposed controller can achieve expected control performance under various operations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robot Control in Human-Machine Systems)
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Review

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14 pages, 1926 KiB  
Review
Pneumatic Soft Robots: Challenges and Benefits
by Hang Su, Xu Hou, Xin Zhang, Wen Qi, Shuting Cai, Xiaoming Xiong and Jing Guo
Actuators 2022, 11(3), 92; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/act11030092 - 16 Mar 2022
Cited by 44 | Viewed by 12754
Abstract
In the field of robotics, soft robots have been showing great potential in the areas of medical care, education, service, rescue, exploration, detection, and wearable devices due to their inherently high flexibility, good compliance, excellent adaptability, and natural and safe interactivity. Pneumatic soft [...] Read more.
In the field of robotics, soft robots have been showing great potential in the areas of medical care, education, service, rescue, exploration, detection, and wearable devices due to their inherently high flexibility, good compliance, excellent adaptability, and natural and safe interactivity. Pneumatic soft robots occupy an essential position among soft robots because of their features such as lightweight, high efficiency, non-pollution, and environmental adaptability. Thanks to its mentioned benefits, increasing research interests have been attracted to the development of novel types of pneumatic soft robots in the last decades. This article aims to investigate the solutions to develop and research the pneumatic soft robot. This paper reviews the status and the main progress of the recent research on pneumatic soft robots. Furthermore, a discussion about the challenges and benefits of the recent advancement of the pneumatic soft robot is provided. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robot Control in Human-Machine Systems)
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