2025/01/15 by Jing Xu, Hugo Nguyen, Seung Hee Jeong +1 · 1 voice
Engineering · #Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials #Microfluidic and Capillary Electrophoresis Applications #Soft Robotics and Applications
paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/adrr.202400015
openalex publication_date 2025/01/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Soft robotics has recently attracted increasing attention due to its inherent softness and compliance. However, to fully realize their potential, it often requires numerous soft components and actuators. One major challenge for a large‐scale system is integration and miniaturization. In addition, for pneumatically controlled actuators, multiplexing is essential to reduce the tubing from the control valves. A miniaturized soft pneumatic actuator matrix (SPAM) with multiplexing control of crossing points by only control signals was realized by embedding two layers of interactive channels () in a soft material (PDMS) to form actuators () by cumulating both strokes and forces at the channel crossings, unlike piston‐based serially coupled gas‐springs that yield constant force. A SPAM prototype of actuators with control signals was studied. A SPAM was demonstrated in a tilting matrix and two coupled SPAMs were used in a pneumatic soft conveyor for planar manipulation. Its simplicity and size allow for future large‐scale integration in soft robotics.