Soft-Maker Company has done several research-industrial projects in the field of design and fabrication of soft robots, which some of them are mentioned as below:
1- Design and fabrication of a flexible pneumatic manipulator with the ability to increase the length for one industrial company and one research institute: This soft robot is a highly-articulated flexible manipulator that consists of three soft segments (links) of different sizes (from large to small). Each segment consists of four linear pneumatic actuators with the ability to increase the length that enables the robot to access any point of its workspace. The tip of this robot is designed with consideration of the ability to install a gripper (soft or traditional). One of the outstanding features of this soft robot is its low cost which makes it cheap and accessible. The other outstanding feature of the robot is its ability to increase its length by about three times bigger than its initial length. It can be used in tight spaces, environments full of obstacles, hazardous environments (that are dangerous to humans), inspections, homes, space research centers, explorations on land or at sea, large and small industries, etc.
2- Soft universal grippers: Soft grippers provide any type of robot with a lot of advantages. They can easily interact with a variety of hard, soft, and delicate objects without damaging them. In Soft-Maker, we have succeeded in the design and fabrication of soft pneumatic grippers as well as soft granular grippers with different shapes for several small and large companies. We can obtain benefits from them in diverse applications including food companies or shops, all kinds of packaging companies, greenhouses, industrial manufacturing companies such as electronic parts, laboratories, and research and medical institutes, and so on.
3- Soft robots are mainly composed of soft actuators. In Soft-Maker, we have designed and fabricated various types of soft actuators. To meet the customers' needs, actuators can be designed and fabricated for various applications. The common actuators are linear or planar, bending, or twisting pneumatic actuators. Our patrons buy and use the linear and bending actuators predominantly, which are designed and manufactured by Soft-Maker.
Pictures of our portfolio.
Selected images from the steps of designing, optimizing, and fabrication of a planar pneumatic actuator.
An image of a special configuration of a flexible granular jamming manipulator.