This paper details the design and fabrication process of a fully integrated soft humanoid robotic hand with five finger that integrate an embedded shape memory alloy (SMA) actuator and a piezoelectric transducer (PZT) flexure sensor. Several challenges including precise control of the SMA actuator, improving power efficiency, and reducing actuation current and response time have been addressed. First, a Ni-Ti SMA strip is pretrained to a circular shape. Second, it is wrapped with a Ni-Cr resistance wire that is coated with thermally conductive and electrically isolating material. This design significantly reduces actuation current, improves circuit efficiency, and hence reduces response time and increases power efficiency. Third, an antagonistic SMA strip is used to improve the shape recovery rate. Fourth, the SMA actuator, the recovery SMA strip, and a flexure sensor are inserted into a 3D printed mold which is filled with silicon rubber materials. The flexure sensor feeds back the finger shape for precise control. Fifth, a demolding process yields a fully integrated multifunctional soft robotic finger. We also fabricated a hand assembled with five fingers and a palm. We measured its performance and specifications with experiments. We demonstrated its capability of grasping various kinds of regular or irregular objects. The soft robotic hand is very robust and has a large compliance, which makes it ideal for use in an unstructured environment. It is inherently safe to human operators as it can withstand large impacts and unintended contacts without causing any injury to human operators or damage to the environment.

In this paper, we propose a variable width compliant link that is designed for optimal trade-off of safety and control performance for inherently safe corobots. Intentionally introducing compliance to mechanical design increases safety of corobots. Traditional approaches mostly focus on the joint compliance, while few of them study the link compliance. Here, we propose a novel method to design compliant robotic links with a safety constraint which is quantified by head injury criterion (HIC). The robotic links are modeled as two-dimensional beams with a variable width. Given a safety threshold, i.e., HIC constraint, the width distribution along the link is optimized to give a uniform distribution of HIC, which guarantees inherent safety for human operators. This solution is validated by a human–robot impact simulation program built in matlab. A static model of the variable width link is derived and verified by finite element simulations. Not only stress in the link is reduced, this new design has a better control and dynamic performance quantified by a larger natural frequency and a larger bandwidth compared with designs made of uniform beams and compliant joints (CJs). The proposed variable width link takes full advantage of the link rigidity while keeps inherent safety during a human–robot impact. This paper demonstrates that the compliant link solution could be a promising alternative approach for addressing safety concerns of human–robot interactions.

In this paper, we study the effects of mechanical compliance on safety in physical human–robot interaction (pHRI). More specifically, we compare the effect of joint compliance and link compliance on the impact force assuming a contact occurred between a robot and a human head. We first establish pHRI system models that are composed of robot dynamics, an impact contact model, and head dynamics. These models are validated by Simscape simulation. By comparing impact results with a robotic arm made of a compliant link (CL) and compliant joint (CJ), we conclude that the CL design produces a smaller maximum impact force given the same lateral stiffness as well as other physical and geometric parameters. Furthermore, we compare the variable stiffness joint (VSJ) with the variable stiffness link (VSL) for various actuation parameters and design parameters. While decreasing stiffness of CJs cannot effectively reduce the maximum impact force, CL design is more effective in reducing impact force by varying the link stiffness. We conclude that the CL design potentially outperforms the CJ design in addressing safety in pHRI and can be used as a promising alternative solution to address the safety constraints in pHRI.

To reduce injury in physical human–robot interactions (pHRIs), a common practice is to introduce compliance to joints or arm of a robotic manipulator. In this paper, we present a robotic arm made of parallel guided beams whose stiffness can be continuously tuned by morphing the shape of the cross section through two four-bar linkages actuated by servo motors. An analytical lateral stiffness model is derived based on the pseudo-rigid-body model and validated by experiments. A physical prototype of a three-armed manipulator is built. Extensive stiffness and impact tests are conducted, and the results show that the stiffness of the robotic arm can be changed up to 3.6 times at a morphing angle of 37 deg. At an impact velocity of 2.2 m/s, the peak acceleration has a decrease of 19.4% and a 28.57% reduction of head injury criteria (HIC) when the arm is tuned from the high stiffness mode to the low stiffness mode. These preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility to reduce impact injury by introducing compliance into the robotic link and that the compliant link solution could be an alternative approach for addressing safety concerns of physical human–robot interactions.

In this article, we present a continuously tunable stiffness arm for safe physical human–robot interactions. Compliant joints and compliant links are two typical solutions to address safety issues for physical human–robot interactions via introducing mechanical compliance to robotic systems. While extensive studies explore variable stiffness joints/actuators, variable stiffness links for safe physical human–robot interactions are much less studied. This article details the design and modeling of a compliant robotic arm whose stiffness can be continuously tuned via cable-driven mechanisms actuated by a single servo motor. Specifically, a 3D-printed compliant robotic arm is prototyped and tested by static experiments, and an analytical model of the variable stiffness arm is derived and validated by testing. The results show that the lateral stiffness of the robot arm can achieve a variety of 221.26% given a morphing angle of 90 deg. The variable stiffness arm design developed in this study could be a promising approach to address safety concerns for safe physical human–robot interactions.

In this paper, we present a continuously tunable stiffness arm for safe physical human-robot interactions. Compliant joints and compliant links are two typical solutions to address safety issues for human-robot interaction via introducing mechanical compliance to robotic systems. While extensive studies explore variable stiffness joints/actuators, variable stiffness links for safe