Soft actuators are an integral part of many soft robots that make them compliant and adaptable. In many previous studies, soft pneumatic actuators were designed and utilized generally to create bending motions. Due to the limited capabilities becomes ineffective where axial elongation is required. Here, we introduce a planar bioinspired soft pneumatic actuator capable of increasing its working area through both longitudinal elongation and bending motions, separately and or simultaneously. The actuator consists of two similar linear soft pneumatic actuators with agap between them. To study the performance of the planar actuator, four normalized sizes of gaps were considered between the linear actuators, analyzed through FEM, and validated by conducting experimental tests. On average, experimental results on the planar actuator demonstrate that the working area is 2.40 times bigger than the working area that just resulted from the bending motion. The results also indicate that the actuator can attain stability under 0.8 s, create a blocked force up to 18 N, and a bending angle up to 240 at the pressure 3.0Bars. Broadening the working area can be an outstanding feature that enables soft robots to be versatile and advantageous in many more applications in real and unstructured environments.

软执行器是许多软机器人不可或缺的一部分，使它们具有兼容性和适应性。在以前的许多研究中，软气动执行器通常被设计和使用来产生弯曲运动。由于有限的能力在需要轴向伸长的地方变得无效。在这里，我们介绍了一种平面仿生软气动执行器，能够分别或同时通过纵向伸长和弯曲运动来增加其工作面积。执行器由两个相似的线性软气动执行器组成，它们之间有间隙。为了研究平面致动器的性能，在线性致动器之间考虑了四种归一化尺寸的间隙，通过 FEM 进行分析，并通过进行实验测试进行验证。一般，平面致动器的实验结果表明，工作区域是弯曲运动产生的工作区域的 2.40 倍。结果还表明，执行器可以在 0.8 秒内获得稳定性，在 3.0Bars 压力下产生高达 18 N 的阻塞力和高达 240 的弯曲角。扩大工作区域可能是一个突出的特点，它使软机器人在真实和非结构化环境中的更多应用中具有多功能性和优势。