In recent years, the advent of soft robotics has changed the landscape of wearable technologies. Soft robots are highly compliant and malleable, thus ensuring safe human-machine interactions. To ...date, a wide variety of actuation mechanisms have been studied and adopted into a multitude of soft wearables for use in clinical practice, such as assistive devices and rehabilitation modalities. Much research effort has been put into improving their technical performance and establishing the ideal indications for which rigid exoskeletons would play a limited role. However, despite having achieved many feats over the past decade, soft wearable technologies have not been extensively investigated from the perspective of user adoption. Most scholarly reviews of soft wearables have focused on the perspective of service providers such as developers, manufacturers, or clinicians, but few have scrutinized the factors affecting adoption and user experience. Hence, this would pose a good opportunity to gain insight into the current practice of soft robotics from a user's perspective. This review aims to provide a broad overview of the different types of soft wearables and identify the factors that hinder the adoption of soft robotics. In this paper, a systematic literature search using terms such as "soft", "robot", "wearable", and "exoskeleton" was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines to include peer-reviewed publications between 2012 and 2022. The soft robotics were classified according to their actuation mechanisms into motor-driven tendon cables, pneumatics, hydraulics, shape memory alloys, and polyvinyl chloride muscles, and their pros and cons were discussed. The identified factors affecting user adoption include design, availability of materials, durability, modeling and control, artificial intelligence augmentation, standardized evaluation criteria, public perception related to perceived utility, ease of use, and aesthetics. The critical areas for improvement and future research directions to increase adoption of soft wearables have also been highlighted.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
This article presents a versatile soft robotic gripper system whereby its fingers can be reconfigured into different poses such as scoop, pinch, and claw. This allows the gripper to efficiently and ...safely handle food samples of different shapes, sizes and stiffness such as uncooked tofu and broccoli floret. The 3D-printed fingers were tested to last up to 25 000 cycles without significant changes in the curvature profile and force output profile. A benchmark experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of the gripper and state-of-the-art gripping solutions. Capability of versatile soft gripper was optimized by integrating vision and tactile sensing facilities. An object recognition system was developed to identify food samples such as potato, broccoli, and sausage. Position and orientation of food samples were identified and pick-and-place pathway was optimized to achieve the best gripping performance. Flexible tactile sensors were integrated into soft fingers and closed-loop force feedback control system was developed. This allowed the gripper to automatically explore and select the most stable grip pose for different food samples. Integration of vision and force feedback system ensure that objects detected by the system would be firmly gripped. The reconfigurable soft robotic gripper system has been demonstrated to perform high-speed pick-and-place tasks (∼3 s per item) with object recognition system, making it a potential solution to food and grocery supply chain needs.
Various robotic exoskeletons have been proposed for hand function assistance during activities of daily living (ADL) of stroke survivors. However, traditional exoskeletons involve the use of complex ...rigid systems that impede the natural movement of joints, and thus reduce the wearability and cause discomfort to the user. The objective of this paper is to design and evaluate a soft robotic glove that is able to provide hand function assistance using fabric-reinforced soft pneumatic actuators. These actuators are made of silicone rubber which has an elastic modulus similar to human tissues. Thus, they are intrinsically soft and compliant. Upon air pressurization, they are able to support finger range of motion (ROM) and generate the desired actuation of the finger joints. In this work, the soft actuators were characterized in terms of their blocked tip force, normal and frictional grip force outputs. Combining the soft actuators and flexible textile materials, a soft robotic glove was developed for grasping assistance during ADL for stroke survivors. The glove was evaluated on five healthy participants for its assisted ROM and grip strength. Pilot test was performed in two stroke survivors to evaluate the efficacy of the glove in assisting functional grasping activities. Our results demonstrated that the actuators designed in this study could generate desired force output at a low air pressure. The glove had a high kinematic transparency and did not affect the active ROM of the finger joints when it was being worn by the participants. With the assistance of the glove, the participants were able to perform grasping actions with sufficient assisted ROM and grip strength, without any voluntary effort. Additionally, pilot test on stroke survivors demonstrated that the patient's grasping performance improved with the presence and assistance of the glove. Patient feedback questionnaires also showed high level of patient satisfaction and comfort. In conclusion, this paper has demonstrated the possibility of using soft wearable exoskeletons that are more wearable, lightweight, and suitable to be used on a daily basis for hand function assistance of stroke survivors during activities of daily living.
In this paper, we present the design, fabrication and evaluation of a soft wearable robotic glove, which can be used with functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI) during the hand rehabilitation ...and task specific training. The soft wearable robotic glove, called MR-Glove, consists of two major components: a) a set of soft pneumatic actuators and b) a glove. The soft pneumatic actuators, which are made of silicone elastomers, generate bending motion and actuate finger joints upon pressurization. The device is MR-compatible as it contains no ferromagnetic materials and operates pneumatically. Our results show that the device did not cause artifacts to fMRI images during hand rehabilitation and task-specific exercises. This study demonstrated the possibility of using fMRI and MR-compatible soft wearable robotic device to study brain activities and motor performances during hand rehabilitation, and to unravel the functional effects of rehabilitation robotics on brain stimulation.
Objective: This randomized controlled feasibility study investigates the ability for clinical application of the Brain-Computer Interface-based Soft Robotic Glove (BCI-SRG) incorporating activities ...of daily living (ADL)-oriented tasks for stroke rehabilitation. Methods: Eleven recruited chronic stroke patients were randomized into BCI-SRG or Soft Robotic Glove (SRG) group. Each group underwent 120-minute intervention per session comprising 30-minute standard arm therapy and 90-minute experimental therapy (BCI-SRG or SRG). To perform ADL tasks, BCI-SRG group used motor imagery-BCI and SRG, while SRG group used SRG without motor imagery-BCI. Both groups received 18 sessions of intervention over 6 weeks. Fugl-Meyer Motor Assessment (FMA) and Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) scores were measured at baseline (week 0), post- intervention (week 6), and follow-ups (week 12 and 24). In total, 10/11 patients completed the study with 5 in each group and 1 dropped out. Results: Though there were no significant intergroup differences for FMA and ARAT during 6-week intervention, the improvement of FMA and ARAT seemed to sustain beyond 6-week intervention for BCI-SRG group, as compared with SRG control. Incidentally, all BCI-SRG subjects reported a sense of vivid movement of the stroke-impaired upper limb and 3/5 had this phenomenon persisting beyond intervention while none of SRG did. Conclusion : BCI-SRG suggested probable trends of sustained functional improvements with peculiar kinesthetic experience outlasting active intervention in chronic stroke despite the dire need for large-scale investigations to verify statistical significance. Significance: Addition of BCI to soft robotic training for ADL-oriented stroke rehabilitation holds promise for sustained improvements as well as elicited perception of motor movements.
Recent advancements in soft robotics have seen the rapid development of soft grippers for industrial pick-and-place applications. They are, however, ill-suited to bear heavy loads due to their ...compliant nature. Paradoxically, researchers have sought to increase the stiffness of soft grippers to improve load-bearing capabilities. Unfortunately, contemporary soft actuators with variable stiffness are fabricated using manual processes and their performance is subject to an individual's mastery. They are therefore not reliable for long-term industrial use. In this article, we present our work on a 3-D-printed metal-endoskeleton-reinforced actuator (MERA) for industrial pick-and-place applications. We also highlight the fabrication processes needed to recreate it repetitively. Using stainless steel splints (SSS), we demonstrate that MERA is able to modulate its stiffness at selective junctures for stable and effective grasping. We also describe our design rationale with a qualitative mathematical model and validate its performance quantitatively using a finite element model, which is further investigated in the following fatigue test. In our experiments, the MERA equipped with SSS is able to output a peak tip force of 8 N, which is a 291% increase compared to the one without metallic reinforcement. In addition, an increase of 76.5% in gripping load and a maximum holding force per actuator of 13.8 N are realized through the stiffness tuning of a MERA-Gripper. Despite significantly improving load-bearing capabilities, the actuator manages to retain an overall low profile with a weight of 82 g. Finally, we adapted the MERA into a reconfigurable gripper and tested its grasping capabilities on objects of various shapes, sizes, and weights.
This letter presents a fully fabric-based bidirectional soft robotic glove designed to assist hand impaired patients in rehabilitation exercises and performing activities of daily living. The glove ...provides both active finger flexion and extension for hand assistance and rehabilitative training, through its embedded fabric-based actuators that are fabricated by heat press and ultrasonic welding of flexible thermoplastic polyurethane-coated fabrics. Compared to previous developed elastomeric-based actuators, the actuators are able to achieve smaller bend radius and generate sufficient force and torque to assist in both finger flexion and extension at lower air pressure. In this letter, experiments were conducted to characterize the performances of the glove in terms of its kinematic and grip strength assistances on five healthy participants. Additionally, we present a graphical-user interface that allows user to choose the desired rehabilitation exercises and control modes, which include button-controlled-assistive mode, cyclic movement training, intention-driven task-specific training, and bilateral rehabilitation training.
Rapid advancements of artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) technology pave the way for developing a digital‐twin‐based remote interactive system for advanced robotic‐enabled industrial automation ...and virtual shopping. The embedded multifunctional perception system is urged for better interaction and user experience. To realize such a system, a smart soft robotic manipulator is presented that consists of a triboelectric nanogenerator tactile (T‐TENG) and length (L‐TENG) sensor, as well as a poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) pyroelectric temperature sensor. With the aid of machine learning (ML) for data processing, the fusion of the T‐TENG and L‐TENG sensors can realize the automatic recognition of the grasped objects with the accuracy of 97.143% for 28 different shapes of objects, while the temperature distribution can also be obtained through the pyroelectric sensor. By leveraging the IoT and artificial intelligence (AI) analytics, a digital‐twin‐based virtual shop is successfully implemented to provide the users with real‐time feedback about the details of the product. In general, by offering a more immersive experience in human–machine interactions, the proposed remote interactive system shows the great potential of being the advanced human–machine interface for the applications of the unmanned working space.
A smart soft robotic manipulator is developed with a self‐powered multifunctional sensory system for simultaneously deformation, tactile, and temperature perception. With machine learning analysis, automatic recognition of grasped objects can be realized with high accuracy. By leveraging the artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) technology, a digital‐twin‐based virtual shop is successfully implemented to provide users with a more immersive shopping experience.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Soft robotic technologies have been known to have various advantages over their rigid counterparts due to their compliant and deformable properties. They can carry out delicate object manipulation ...and perform complex maneuvers in confined spaces, which traditional robotics has difficulty with. The most widely adopted fabrication method for traditional soft elastomeric fluidic actuators is mold‐casting, which is cumbersome and involves several manual steps. Therefore, a substantial variability in performance and quality of these actuators arises directly from the manufacturing process. This paper presents on a novel fold‐based design of a 3D‐printed soft pneumatic bending actuator. In contrast to other works that rely on high‐end multimaterial 3D printers, a consumer‐grade open source 3D printer to fabricate soft pneumatic actuators in a fast and cheap way using fused deposition modeling technology has been adapted. This allows for consistency in both the quality of the actuators and their mechanical performance. The key findings in (1) a 3D‐printed fold‐based actuator fabrication process, (2) actuator characterization, and (3) a design‐centric approach toward different bending profiles for different applications are presented.
Manufacturing of soft pneumatic actuators could not have been easier with 3D printing of flexible materials. A novel fold‐based design‐based approach through 3D printing enhances the performance of soft pneumatic actuators while conferring abilities to bend into different configurations. This design can also be fundamentally used to manufacture soft pneumatic actuators found in a variety of functional applications.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The provision of continuous passive, and intent-based assisted movements for neuromuscular training can be incorporated into a robotic elbow sleeve. The objective of this study is to propose the ...design and test the functionality of a soft robotic elbow sleeve in assisting flexion and extension of the elbow, both passively and using intent-based motion reinforcement. First, the elbow sleeve was developed, using elastomeric and fabric-based pneumatic actuators, which are soft and lightweight, in order to address issues of non-portability and poor alignment with joints that conventional robotic rehabilitation devices are faced with. Second, the control system was developed to allow for: (i) continuous passive actuation, in which the actuators will be activated in cycles, alternating between flexion and extension; and (ii) an intent-based actuation, in which user intent is detected by surface electromyography (sEMG) sensors attached to the biceps and triceps, and passed through a logic sequence to allow for flexion or extension of the elbow. Using this setup, the elbow sleeve was tested on six healthy subjects to assess the functionality of the device, in terms of the range of motion afforded by the device while in the continuous passive actuation. The results showed that the elbow sleeve is capable of achieving approximately 50% of the full range of motion of the elbow joint among all subjects. Next, further experiments were conducted to test the efficacy of the intent-based actuation on these healthy subjects. The results showed that all subjects were capable of achieving electromyography (EMG) control of the elbow sleeve. These preliminary results show that the elbow sleeve is capable of carrying out continuous passive and intent-based assisted movements. Further investigation of the clinical implementation of the elbow sleeve for the neuromuscular training of neurologically-impaired persons, such as stroke survivors, is needed.
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