High functionalization of inflatable link based on stiffness change

Several types of inflatable robot have been proposed. It is expected that the inflatable robots are utilized in many new applications, because they are light and flexible. To actually use them, stiffness of inflatable links should be set as suitable values depending on tasks. For this purpose, the stiffness should be variable. This paper proposes two inflatable links capable of changing stiffness. The structures of the proposed links are shown and the performance of variable stiffness of the links are experimentally demonstrated.