Design of an Active Morphable Pneumatic Bilayer Planar Actuator Inspired by Starfish
Chengdi Zhou, Jituo Li, Juncai Long, Xiaojie Diao, Guodong Lu, Hassen Nigatu, Howard Li
Abstract
Inspired by the starfish's active deformation to stably adhere to surfaces of different shapes, this paper designs an Active Pneumatic Bilayer Planar Actuator (A-PBPA) for surface morphing. The innovation is threefold: firstly, by replacing the fixed connecting rods between top and bottom layers in the classic PBPA with adjustable active positioning rods similar to starfish tube feet, the structural diversity of deformation is enhanced; secondly, by adjusting the upper soft body structure of the PBPA to a bistable origami structure, the load-bearing capacity of the actuator is improved while maintaining its deformation capability; thirdly, using A-PBPA as the base, a flexible matrix of suction cups is designed, which effectively increases the unit area adhesion force of the suction cup on non-planar surfaces. Theoretical and physical experiments validate the performance of A-PBPA.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{ral2026_designofanactive,
title = {Design of an Active Morphable Pneumatic Bilayer Planar Actuator Inspired by Starfish},
author = {Chengdi Zhou and Jituo Li and Juncai Long and Xiaojie Diao and Guodong Lu and Hassen Nigatu and Howard Li},
booktitle = {RA-L 2026},
year = {2026}
}