Elephant Trunk Inspired Multimodal Deformations and Movements of Soft Robotic Arms
Through experiments, finite element analysis (FEA), and a theoretical model, the influence of LCE fiber design on the achievable deformations, movements, and reachability of trunk-inspired robotic arms is studied. The remarkably broad range of deformations and the reachability of the arm are discussed, alongside transitions between deformation modes for functional movements. It is anticipated that this design and actuation strategy will serve as a robust method to realize high-DOF soft actuators for various engineering applications.