| Summary: | Soft robots, utilizing flexible and compliant materials, enable adaptable and safe interactions in various applications, with pneumatic robots standing out due to their simplicity and ease of control. Thermal drawing technology is characterized by its capability to produce micro-scale structures and its suitability for mass production. This dissertation integrates the advantages of both, proposing a set of pneumatic fibre actuators fabricated through thermal drawing.
This dissertation details the fabrication process of these fibre actuators and the design of pneumatic driving systems to control their actuation, encompassing both hardware and software development. Subsequently, preliminary tests of the fibre actuators were conducted using the designed pneumatic driving systems. The tests confirmed effective actuation, which was further supported by a mathematical model and simulations. The proposed fibre actuators, utilizing air pressure, are capable of achieving three distinct actuation modes: elongating, bending, and spiraling.
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