A silicone-based embedded additive manufacturing method, called Rapid Liquid Printing (RLP) is applied to the fabrication of soft pneumatic actuators to investigate and demonstrate its potential for applications in soft robotics. This process is shown to improve on traditional silicone casting and additive manufacturing of elastomers, the two main manufacturing methods used in soft robotics, by offering complete design freedom at high speed without compromising material properties. Contrary to existing silicone printing techniques, RLP uses commercially available materials and a simple robotic arm or gantry CNC machine to print large structures in a supporting gel at a rate of four times the speed of state-of-the-art multi-material printers. To determine the applicability of RLP for soft robotics and in the production of soft actuators, a benchmark testing procedure for pneumatic linear actuators is developed. A linear actuator design is manufactured using three techniques: silicone casting, multi-material polyjet printing, and RLP. These actuators are tested for elongation and fatigue behavior through cycling and force. Rapid liquid printed actuators perform comparably for elongation range and exceed the two other methods for repeatability and longevity. A complex, multi-chambered demonstrator is designed from the actuator geometry to showcase the advantages of RLP versus existing silicone printing methods including speed, scale, and part complexity. These results demonstrate the applicability of RLP to the field of soft robotics and pave the way for its further implementation in the manufacturing of soft pneumatic actuators.

基于有机硅的嵌入式增材制造方法，称为快速液体印刷（RLP），被用于制造软气动执行器，以研究并证明其在软机器人中的应用潜力。通过在不影响材料性能的前提下提供完整的高速设计自由度，该工艺已证明可改善传统的有机硅浇铸和弹性体的增材制造（弹性体的两种主要制造方法）。与现有的有机硅印刷技术相反，RLP使用市售材料和简单的机械臂或龙门式CNC机器，以支持胶中的大型结构以最先进的多材料打印机速度的四倍速度进行打印。为了确定RLP在软机器人和软执行器生产中的适用性，制定了气动线性执行器的基准测试程序。线性执行器设计使用三种技术制造：硅树脂浇铸，多材料多喷射印刷和RLP。这些执行器通过循环和作用力进行了伸长和疲劳性能测试。快速液体印刷执行器在延伸范围方面具有可比性，并且在重复性和寿命方面超过了其他两种方法。从执行机构的几何形状设计了一个复杂的多腔演示器，以展示RLP与现有的有机硅印刷方法相比的优势，包括速度，规模和零件复杂性。这些结果证明了RLP在软机器人领域的适用性，并为在软气动执行器的制造中进一步实施铺平了道路。