In this paper, a soft robotic arm which can prevent impact injury during human-robot interaction is introduced. Two degrees of freedom joint are required to realize free movement of the robotic arm. A robotic joint concept with a single degree of freedom is presented using simple inflatable elements, and then extended to form a robotic joint with two degrees of freedom joint using similar manufacturing methods. The robotic joint with a single degree of freedom has a joint angle of 0° bending angle when both chamber are inflated at equal pressures and maximum bending angles of 28.4° and 27.1° when a single chamber if inflated. The robotic joint with two degrees of freedom also has a bending angle of 0° in both direction when all three chambers are inflated at equal pressures. When either one or two chambers were pressurized, the robotic joint performed bending towards the uninflated chambers.

Recently, soft robots using soft materials are presented. Thanks to soft materials, soft robots have flexible, highly-stretchable or adaptable features. However, due to the flexibility of soft material, it is hard for soft robots to control accurately or perform high force. To deal with these limitations, variable stiffness technology, which enables the stiffness control of structure, has been developed. In this research, a dual-stiffness structure that is actuated by the assembly of two flexible structures are presented. Each flexible structure consists of flexible film part and rigid parts placed at regular intervals. The flexibility of film between rigid parts allows each structure to move softly. On the other hand, by combining two structures rigid part of each part constrain the degrees of freedom of the other side part. And this causes the stiffness of whole structure to be increased. This paper will cover concepts, design, analysis and experiments of this structure.