The Design and Implementation of a Single-Actuator Soft Robot Arm for Lower Back Pain Reduction

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 This paper presents a simple and fast design and implementation for a soft robot arm. The proposed continuum arm has been built by a single self-bending contraction actuator (SBCA) with two-fingers soft gripper. Because of the valuable advantages of the pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM), this continuum arm provides a high degree of safety to individuals. The proposed soft robot arm has a bending behaviour of more 180° at 3.5 kg, while, its weight is 0.7 kg. Moreover, it is designed to assist the people by reducing the number of backbends and that leads to a decrease in the possibility of lower back pain.

KEYWORDS: Pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM), Bending actuator, Lower back pain, Continuum arm, Human-robot interaction.

The full version is available at:

https://faculty.uobasrah.edu.iq/uploads/publications/1596615300.pdf

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