Research and Development of Stiffness Regulator by 3D Printing

C229 manipulators have higher flexibility and the capacity of obstacle avoidance, the current research is focusing on the more ingenious structural designs and more driving methods, but seldom investigates the stiffness controlling to improve the loading capacity of manipulators. In this paper, a structure of stiffness regulator is designed to regulate the stiffness of continuum manipulator, it consist of gasbags and flexible shells. The flexible shell is processed by 3D printing, this research also analyze the failure reasons during printing process. For improving the effect of 3D-printing, recompiling the G-Code can decrease the ratio of inadhesion. Finally, the optimized effect of 3D printing and the effect of stiffness regulation are shown, it proves the effectiveness of designed structure.