{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/98313"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/98313","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Architectures of soft pneumatic actuators for wearable human assistive applications","abstract":"This thesis presents the design and analysis of two novel fabric-like architectures of soft pneumatic actuators known as Fiber Reinforced Elastomeric Enclosures (FREEs) and studies the implication of wearing them as sleeves around the elbow joint. The first architecture is a helical arrangement of FREEs, which is shown to directionally modulate its stiffness. The second architecture is a nested arrangement of FREEs, which is shown to provide 70% more actuation stroke than a single actuator. The thesis presents an analytical framework, first to accurately capture the behavior of a contracting FREE actuator, and then the model stiffness modulation and stroke amplification functionalities of the two architectures. These models are verified with both benchtop experiments and preliminary human testing. The thesis presents design guidelines to configure these architectures for any functional and size requirements.","abstract_html":"This thesis presents the design and analysis of two novel fabric-like architectures of soft pneumatic actuators known as Fiber Reinforced Elastomeric Enclosures (FREEs) and studies the implication of wearing them as sleeves around the elbow joint. The first architecture is a helical arrangement of FREEs, which is shown to directionally modulate its stiffness. The second architecture is a nested arrangement of FREEs, which is shown to provide 70% more actuation stroke than a single actuator. The thesis presents an analytical framework, first to accurately capture the behavior of a contracting FREE actuator, and then the model stiffness modulation and stroke amplification functionalities of the two architectures. These models are verified with both benchtop experiments and preliminary human testing. The thesis presents design guidelines to configure these architectures for any functional and size requirements.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Zhang, Xiaotian"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Mechanical Engineering","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Krishnan, Girish"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2017,"date_issued":"2017-09-29T17:52:34Z","date_published":"2017-09-29T17:52:34Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:35Z","subjects":["Soft robotics","Assistive device"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2017 Xiaotian Zhang"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98313","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Krishnan, Girish"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Zhang, Xiaotian"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2017-09-29T17:52:34Z","2019-09-30T09:15:29Z","2017-07-21","2017-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Mechanical Engineering"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Soft robotics","Assistive device"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2017 Xiaotian Zhang"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98313"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This thesis presents the design and analysis of two novel fabric-like architectures of soft pneumatic actuators known as Fiber Reinforced Elastomeric Enclosures (FREEs) and studies the implication of wearing them as sleeves around the elbow joint. 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The first architecture is a helical arrangement of FREEs, which is shown to directionally modulate its stiffness. The second architecture is a nested arrangement of FREEs, which is shown to provide 70% more actuation stroke than a single actuator. The thesis presents an analytical framework, first to accurately capture the behavior of a contracting FREE actuator, and then the model stiffness modulation and stroke amplification functionalities of the two architectures. These models are verified with both benchtop experiments and preliminary human testing. 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