Soft continuum manipulators based on pneumatic artificial muscles offer the advantages of high compliance, complex environmental adaptability, and safe interaction with humans and work environments. However, most of them cannot continuously change their stiffness under a fixed end position due to the strong coupling of position and stiffness. To overcome this problem, this article develops a light soft continuum manipulator with a continuously controllable stiffness based on thin McKibben pneumatic artificial muscles. By controlling the external 2.0 mm muscles and the internal 1.3 mm muscles, the position and stiffness are decoupled. The math model is established, and the validity is verified by experiments.

中文翻译：

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轻薄的机械臂，由薄的McKibben气动人工肌肉驱动，具有连续可调的刚度

基于气动人造肌肉的软连续机械手具有以下优点：高顺应性，复杂的环境适应性以及与人和工作环境的安全交互。然而，由于位置和刚度的强耦合，它们中的大多数不能在固定的终端位置连续改变其刚度。为了克服这个问题，本文开发了一种轻薄的连续机械臂，该机械臂基于薄的McKibben气动人造肌肉，具有可连续控制的刚度。通过控制外部2.0毫米的肌肉和内部1.3毫米的肌肉，位置和刚度将分离。建立了数学模型，并通过实验验证了其有效性。