UC San Diego

In this work, a novel, monolithic fabrication method is proposed and developed. The proposed process aims at the fabrication of low profile, pneumatic soft robots powered by pouch actuators and combines the concepts of lamination, 3d printing and thermal bonding. Two different fabrication approaches, the filament welding fabrication and the mask heat pressing fabrication were introduced and tested, preferred manufacturing parameters were obtained by experiments. The fabrication, due to its simplicity and flexibility, enable prototyping of soft actuators with different applications and properties and therefore has potential for future application in soft robotics.