Stiffening of Soft Robotic Actuators - Jamming Approaches

Soft robotic devices could provide inherent compliance and conformity to external objects. However, the good compliance of soft robots is a direct compromise of its structural rigidity. It is technically challenging to achieve a large degree of inherent compliance while also maintaining reasonable structural stiffness in order to exert forces to perform required tasks. The lack of sufficient structural rigidity results in the limited task efficacy of soft actuators in practical applications. This paper will look into jamming based soft actuator stiffening methods and compare their performance. Suitable application areas of each stiffening method are recommended.