Thesis ETH Zurich 25379 SoftRoboticFacades

Research Collection
Doctoral Thesis
Soft-Robotic-Driven Adaptive Photovoltaic Building Envelopes
Author(s):
Svetozarevic, Bratislav
Publication Date:
2018
Permanent Link:
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000309667
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In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted
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ETH Library
bratislav svetozarevic
S O F T - R O B O T I C - D R I V E N A D A P T I V E P H O T O V O LTA I C
BUILDING ENVELOPES
diss. eth no. 25379
S O F T- R O B O T I C - D R I V E N A D A P T I V E
P H O T O V O LTA I C B U I L D I N G E N V E L O P E S
A dissertation submitted to attain the degree of

doctor of sciences of eth zurich
(Dr. sc. ETH Zurich)
presented by
bratislav svetozarevic
MSc. El. Eng., University of Belgrade

born on 02.04.1985 in Belgrade
citizen of Serbia
accepted on the recommendation of

Prof. Dr. Arno Schlueter, examiner
Prof. Dr. Zoltan Nagy, co-examiner
2018
Bratislav Svetozarevic: Soft-Robotic-Driven Adaptive Photovoltaic Building
Envelopes , © 2018
doi:
To my beloved ones ...
P R E FA C E
It may be true, that men, who are mere

mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings,
but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally
true of every other exclusive occupation.
— Carl Friedrich Gauss
Let me start off with some impressions about the environment in which
this work was done, the benefits and challenges it brought, and the aspects
in which I saw a beauty that made me quickly forget some hard moments
and kept me (and still keeps me) motivated to do research.
Doing research and engineering today is substantially different than how
it was just some 10 or 20 years ago, and already next year I would have
been able to write this preface differently. The world is changing at an
unprecedented pace driven by an immense amount of new discoveries
and knowledge created every day. This new information becomes available
around the globe just milliseconds after it is uploaded to the internet. At
the same time, novel tools, measurement devices, data banks, mathematical
models, algorithms, and software packages are being developed, deployed,
and adopted into practice within a fraction of a year. All of these allow
researchers to develop and test ideas faster, easier, and in greater detail
than ever before.
On the other hand, mastering any topic requires not only long hours of
studying, but more challengingly continued learning about new discoveries.
Furthermore, it is increasingly becoming the case that the most interesting
discoveries happen at the intersections of several disciplines rather than
within a single discipline. This requires researchers not only to be familiar
with one or more additional disciplines but also to start mastering them
in order to be able to more easily spot synergies. Consequently, a multidis-
ciplinary team is a fruitful environment that allows one to quickly learn
about other topics through direct interactions with researchers from other
disciplines, while having a chance to reflect and question learnings from
one’s own field.
Finally, mastering one or more disciplines and knowing their boundaries
is necessary but not sufficient for doing research. A researcher is supposed
to expand the boundaries of the known by envisioning a next feasible point
vii
beyond those boundaries. Such a point should be of benefit for everyone.
The excitement after finding such a point and seeing people reacting to it is
irreplaceable feeling. The soft-robotic-driven adaptive photovoltaic building
envelope was one such project.
viii
ABSTRACT
Current building envelopes are predominantly static, manually operated,

and do not have integrated energy harvesting devices. As opposite to this,
kinetic building envelopes with integrated photovoltaics, have the poten-
tial to improve building energy performance and occupant comfort by
regulating solar heat gains and natural lighting while simultaneously gen-
erating electricity on site. If equipped with reflecting elements, the adaptive
envelopes can be also used to redistribute solar radiation among neigh-
bouring buildings for generation of thermal energy or mitigation of urban
heat-island effects. Even though various approaches to kinetic and climate-
adaptive envelopes exist, they are limited to theoretical studies, small-scale
prototypes, and single, exhibition-type prototypes. The reason for this is in
the actuation mechanisms used, which are typically very complex and are
comprised of many mechanical components, such as electromotors, rails,
pulleys, and cables. This increases the need for maintenance and reduces
the lifespan of the envelope.To realize the full potential of adaptive building
envelopes, a robust and cost-effective way to reliably move their elements
is required.
Pneumatically-driven elastomeric actuators, as commonly found in soft
robotics, have been identified in this work as a simple, low cost, and
robust actuation solution. The toughness, relative chemical inertness, and
low glass-transition temperature of silicone elastomers make them ideal
for tolerating external environmental conditions, such as rain, cold, heat,
and wind. Inherently compliant, they are robust to external disturbances.
Pneumatically-powered, they exhibit a high force-to-weight ratio, large
strokes, and low mechanical impedance. The challenge is in their design,
fabrication, and control. In particular, one of the core challenges of soft
actuators is to be able to actively vary their stiffness. The variable stiffness,
in this case, would enable actuators to stabilise the envelope panels in wind.
In this work, a novel hybrid, soft-hard-material, pneumatically-driven,
two-axis actuator with variable stiffness is introduced. It comprises a single-
body three-chambered elastomeric actuator and a metal two-axis joint
from classical mechanics. The metal joint provides structural stability for
the soft actuator, thus enabling its more precise and controlled move-
ments, higher forces, and variable stiffness, while all the advantages of
pneumatically-driven elastomeric actuators are retained. The corrugated de-
ix
sign of chambers’ walls allows fast (0.1 s) actuation and reduction of strain
in the material, thus increasing the lifespan of the actuator. The actuator
achieved 30,000 cycles in laboratory conditions without breaking; assuming
four cycles a day, this is equivalent to a 20-year lifespan.
The inherent compliance, pneumatic actuation, and compact design al-
lowed for reduction of actuator’s size, weight, and complexity compared to
an actuator of the same performance that would be constructed in classical
mechanics, for example using two electromotors, gearboxes, and spring. As
such, this actuator enabled construction of modular, lightweight adaptive
building envelopes with integrated energy harvesting devices, such as thin-
film photovoltaic panels. The soft actuators were produced using a novel
method for fast and precise manufacturing of elastomeric actuators, called
Quick-cast, introduced also in this work.
A novel distributed, modular pneumatic control system is also introduced
in this work. It allows pressure to be locally controlled at each envelope
module by receiving control signals from a central controlling unit, while
the measurements from the orientation sensor, an inertial measurement unit,
are sent to the central unit. Such a pneumatic orientation control system
enables expansion of the envelope to a wide range of shape and sizes, with
only a few steps required to connect a new envelope module with the soft
actuator.
Several envelope prototypes have been constructed and tested in real-
weather conditions in solar tracking experiments. Electricity gains of 30-
50% have been measured for a South oriented envelope with 16 widely
distributed panels; these gains correspond well with theoretical estimates.
The gain in solar tracking depends largely on envelope orientation, climatic
region, and the distribution of the elements within the envelope. However,
the total building energy savings also include the effects of active shading.
Estimated energy savings for an office in Zurich with such an adaptive
photovoltaic envelope are 20-80% more than an equivalent static system,
depending on the building type. We estimated the self-energy consumption,
that is, the energy used for pneumatic control vs. the total energy produced,
to be about 3%, based on measurements.
x
Z U S A M M E N FA S S U N G
Im Gegensatz zu gängigen überwiegend statischen und manuell betrie-

benen Hüllen ohne Photovoltaik haben klimaadaptive kinetische Gebäu-
dehüllen mit integrierter Photovoltaik das Potenzial, durch Regulierung
der solaren Wärmegewinne und der natürlichen Beleuchtung die Ener-
gieeffizienz von Gebäuden zu verbessern und gleichzeitig vor Ort Strom
zu erzeugen. In Erweiterung des Konzepts kann die adaptive Hülle, falls
sie mit reflektierenden Elementen ausgestattet ist, auch mittels Weiterver-
teilung von Sonnenstrahlung auf benachbarte Gebäude zur thermischen
Energieerzeugung oder Minderung von städtischen Wärmeinseleffekten
verwendet werden. Existierende kinetische Hüllen werden typischerweise
von komplexen Aktuatormechanismen angetrieben, die viele mechanische
Komponenten wie Elektromotoren, Schienen, Rollen und Kabel enthalten,
wodurch die Lebensdauer der Hülle reduziert wird. Um das volle Potenzial
von anpassungsfähigen, kinetischen Gebäudehüllen zu realisieren wird
eine robuste und kostengünstige Methode benötigt, um ihre Elemente
zuverlässig zu bewegen.
Pneumatisch angetriebene elastomerische Aktuatoren, wie sie üblicher-
weise in der „Soft Robotics“ verwendet werden, wurden als einfache, kosten-
günstige und robuste Lösung identifiziert. Die Strapazierfähigkeit, relative
chemische Inertheit und niedrige Glasübergangstemperatur von Silikonelas-
tomeren machen sie ideal um Umweltbedingungen wie Regen, Kälte, Hitze
und Wind zu ertragen. Von Natur aus nachgiebig sind sie robust gegenüber
äußeren Störungen. Pneumatisch angetrieben weisen sie ein hohes Kraft-
Gewicht-Verhältnis, große Hübe und niedrige mechanische Impedanz auf.
Ihre Herausforderung liegt im Design, der Herstellung und der Steuerung.
Speziell ist eine der zentralen Herausforderungen bei „Soft-Actuators“ die
Steifigkeit aktiv variieren zu können. Eine solche variable Steifigkeit würde
in diesem Fall den Aktuatoren ermöglichen, die Paneele der Hülle im Wind
zu stabilisieren.
In dieser Arbeit wird ein neuartiger, hybrid aus einer Kombination von
harten und weichen Materialen bestehender, pneumatisch angetriebener
Antrieb mit zwei Freiheitsgraden und variabler Steifigkeit eingeführt. Er
besteht aus einem monolithischen Elastomer-Aktuator mit drei Kammern
und einem klassischen mechanischen Metall-Zweiachsgelenk. Das Metall-
gelenk gibt dem Soft-Aktuator strukturelle Stabilität und ermöglicht somit
xi
präzisere und kontrolliertere Bewegungen, die Erzeugung grösserer Kräfte
und variabler Steifigkeit, während alle Vorteile pneumatisch angetriebener
elastomerer Aktuatoren erhalten bleiben. Die Wellwandkonstruktion der
Kammern ermöglicht eine schnelle (0,1 s) Betätigung, reduzierte Material-
belastung und damit längere Lebensdauer der Aktuatoren. Der Aktuator
erreichte unter Laborbedingungen 30’000 Zyklen ohne Ausfall, was bei vier
Zyklen pro Tag einer Lebensdauer von 20 Jahren entsprechen würde.
Dieser leichte, elastische Aktuator ermöglichte eine Reduktion der Ak-
tuatorgröße und die Konstruktion von leichten adaptiven Gebäudehüllen
mit integrierten Dünnschicht-Photovoltaik-Modulen. Die „Soft-Aktuatoren“
wurden hergestellt mittels einer neuartigen Fertigungsmethode für schnelle
und präzise Massenproduktion von elastomerischen Aktuatoren, genannt
Quick-Cast, welche ebenfalls in dieser Arbeit entwickelt wurde. Ebenfalls
wurde ein neuartiges, verteiltes, modulares pneumatisches Steuersystem
eingeführt. Es ermöglicht die Druckregelung lokal an jedem Modul der
Hülle durch Empfang der Steuersignale von der zentralen Steuerungsein-
heit, während die Messungen vom Orientierungssensor (Trägheitsmessein-
heit) an die zentrale Einheit gesendet werden. Ein solches pneumatisches
Orientierungskontrollsystem ermöglicht eine Erweiterung der Fassade zu
beliebiger Form und Größe, wobei nur wenige Schritte nötig sind, um ein
neues Fassadenmodul mit dem Soft-Aktuator zu verbinden.
Mehrere Fassadenprototypen wurden gebaut und unter realen Wetterbe-
dingungen in Solar-Tracking-Experimenten getestet. Elektrizitätsgewinne
von 30-50% wurden für die ungefähr nach Süden orientierte Gebäudehülle
mit 16 weit verteilten Paneelen gemessen, was gut den theoretischen Schät-
zungen entspricht. Die Verbesserung beim Solar-Tracking hängt weitgehend
von der Hüllenorientierung ab, der klimatischen Region sowie der Vertei-
lung der Elemente innerhalb der Hülle. Die gesamten Energieeinsparungen
des Gebäudes umfassen hingegen auch die Auswirkungen der aktiven
Beschattung.
Geschätzte Energieeinsparungen für ein Büro in Zürich mit der adaptiven
photovoltaischen Hülle sind 20-80% im Vergleich zu einem äquivalenten
statischen System, abhängig von der Gebäudeart. Den Eigenenergiever-
brauch (die Energie der pneumatischen Steuerung gegenüber der gesamten
erzeugten Energie), schätzen wir basierend auf Messungen auf etwa 3%.
xii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor, Prof. Arno Schlueter. I am

firstly grateful to him for giving me the chance to work on this project.
Working with him for over four years gave me the opportunity to learn a lot
about organising and leading a research group, which I hope will be very
useful for my future career, and about presenting, teaching, and working
with students. Even more, I am grateful to him for numerous discussions
and feedback, and for being very supportive and encouraging during the
whole project. Without his efforts and the amount of time he invested in
supervising and guiding me, this work would not have achieved this scope
and form.
I am especially grateful to Prof. Zoltan Nagy for co-supervising and
guiding my work in the first half of the project, as well as for continuing
to provide very valuable comments and suggestions afterwards. I am also
very grateful to Dr. Johannes Hofer and Dr. Illias Hischier for mentoring me
through the end stages of my work. My gratitude also goes to prof. Robert
Shepherd from Cornell University for providing feedback and suggestions
to several parts of my work.
A big thank you goes to the colleagues with whom I collaborated closely
on this project and who have strongly contributed to some parts of this
work: Moritz Begle, Jayathissa Prageeth, and Stefan Caranovic. We spent
many hours putting our heads together on some hard problems, celebrated
working solutions, and had fun constructing several prototypes. I would
also like to thank my students and assistants that played an important
role in this thesis: Nico Offeddu, Jacob Dominic, Eunyoung Jung, Mathias
Niffeler, Ioanna Stavrou, Ruben Stadler, and Nikola Stojanovic. Last but
not least in this group, I would like to thank Huichan Zhao from Cornell
University for spending some time at the A/S lab adopting the rotational
casting manufacturing method for our purposes.
I would also like to thank my numerous colleagues from the A/S group.
In particular, I would like to thank Daren Thomas for his IT support and
many discussions and fun, Gearoid Lydon for great time spent together
working on the HiLo project, Mario Frei for his German-language proof-
reading, Anja Willmann, Jimeno Fonseca, Clayton Miller, Hu Zhao, and
Martin Mosteiro Romero for their inspiration and for being always there
for a coffee or beer break.
xiii
I would like to thank my friends for their constant encouragement and
for making living in Zurich such a great experience. Special thanks go to
Milorad Marjanovic, Miroslav Simijonovic, Nikolaos Kariotoglou, Andreas
Hempel, Felix Budde, and the Velickovic, Huljic, Tanaskovic, Lichtensteiger,
Pesic, Petrovic, Kovacevic-Badstuebner, and Dragas-Muehlethaler families
for their friendship and support.
My thanks also go to my sister Jelena for her love and understanding
and to my cousin Vladimir for being there whenever needed, even to hold
a sensor box on the roof of HPZ. I want to thank my parents for supporting
me in every possible way. In addition, I want to thank my grandparents for
their love, care, and for teaching me some important life lessons in my early
life about honesty, hard work, fair play, and also some crafts that came in
handy throughout my engineering studies. I would also like to thank all of
my professors, all the way back to my elementary school, Jovan Jovanovic
Zmaj in Surdulica, at the prestigious Mathematical Grammar School in
Belgrade, and at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of
Belgrade. You all have a small piece in this thesis.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife Ruzica for being by my
side during all the sweet and hard moments of my PhD!
xiv
CONTENTS
1 introduction 1
1.1 Adaptive Building Envelopes 1
1.2 Soft-Material Actuators 2
1.3 Research Questions 3
1.4 Research Overview 4
1.4.1 Design of a single-body 2-DOF soft-material actuator
with corrugated walls 4
1.4.2 Fabrication of soft actuators 5
1.4.3 Hybrid soft-hard-material actuator with variable stiff-
ness 5
1.4.4 Control algorithms 6
1.4.5 Soft-robotic-driven adaptive photovoltaic envelopes 6
1.4.6 Modular Pneumatic Control System 7
1.4.7 Energy consumption 7
1.5 Organisation of the thesis 8
1.6 Contribution from other authors 9
2 soro-track: a two-axis soft robotic platform for so-
lar tracking and building-integrated photovoltaic
applications 11
2.1 Introduction 12
2.2 Design Specification and Fabrication 13
2.3 Modelling and characterisation 16
2.3.1 Kinematic Model 16
2.3.2 Dynamic Model 18
2.3.3 Robustness to Wind Loads 20
2.4 Solar Tracking 22
2.4.1 Orientation Control 22
2.4.2 Experiments 23
2.5 Conclusion 25
3 soft robotic driven photovoltaic building envelope
for adaptive energy and comfort management 27
3.1 Introduction 28
3.2 Working principle and use cases of soft robotic building
envelope 29
3.3 Two-axis hybrid soft-hard-material pneumatic actuator 30
xv
xvi contents
3.4Envelope control 32
3.5Envelope performance in real weather conditions 34
3.6Energy benefits of the envelope as part of the building service
system 37
3.7 Discussion 38
3.8 Methods 40
3.8.1 Fabrication of soft-material actuator 40
3.8.2 Finite-element analysis of soft actuator 41
3.8.3 Pneumatic control system 43
3.8.4 Pressure-deflection measurements 44
3.8.5 Repeatability of motion measurements 46
3.8.6 Variable stiffness experiment 47
3.8.7 Variable damping experiment 47
3.8.8 Cycles before break measurements 48
3.8.9 Orientation feedback control of a single facade mod-
ule 48
3.8.10 Solar tracking experiments 50
3.8.11 Electricity consumption measurements of the pneu-
matic control system 52
4 quick-cast: a method for fast and precise scalable
production of fluid-driven elastomeric soft actua-
tors 61
4.1 Introduction 62
4.2 Methods and materials 64
4.2.1 Actuator design 64
4.2.2 State-of-the-art manufacturing methods 65
4.2.3 Quick-cast manufacturing method in laboratory con-
ditions 66
4.2.4 Quick-cast manufacturing method in industry 69
4.3 Results and discussion 69
4.3.1 Pressure-deflection characterisation 70
4.3.2 Repeatability of motion 71
4.3.3 Comparison with state-of-the-art methods 71
4.4 Conclusions 73
4.5 Acknowledgements 75
4.6 Appendix A. Supplementary data 76
5 coupling of hard and soft robotics: hybrid metal-
elastomeric pneumatic 2-dof actuators with vari-
able stiffness 81
contents xvii
5.1 Introduction 82
5.2 Pressure-deflection analysis 86
5.2.1 Methodology 86
5.2.2 Results 87
5.3 Response to external distrubance 88
5.3.2 Results 90
5.4 Stiffness analysis 92
5.4.2 Results 95
5.5 Pressures-to-stiffness modeling 96
5.5.2 Results 99
5.6 Pressures-to-angles modeling 102
5.6.2 Results 103
5.7 Model-based feedforward control 106
5.7.2 Results 107
5.8 Conclusion 108
5.9 Appendix A. System overview 112
5.10 Appendix B. Fabrication of 2-DOF joints 113
6 conclusion 115
6.1 Summary of results 115
6.2 Discussion 117
6.3 Outlook 119
bibliography 121
N O TAT I O N
frequently used symbols
symbol meaning
α, ϕ soft actautor roll angle
θ soft actautor pitch angle
pi pressures in chambers
k i , k ij , Stiffness coefficient
di , dij , δi , δi,j Damping coefficient
ωn Natural frequency
Φ0j moment of inertia of the SoRo-Track
Φmj moment of inertia of the mounted PV plate
Td Dominant time constant
s Complex frequency
G (s) Transfer function
xviii
notation xix
abbreviations
ASF Adaptive Solar Facade

BIPV Building Integrated Photovoltaic
CIGS Copper Indium Gallium Selenide
DOF Degrees-of-freedom
EAP Electro-active polymers
FEM Finite Element Method
FEA Fluid-drive Elastomeric Actautors
HVAC Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning
IMU Inertial Measurement Unit
LTI Linear Time-Invariant
MPP Maximum Power Point
PV Photovoltaic
PLC Programmable Logic Controller
SoRo-Track Two-Axis, Three-Chambered Soft Robotic Solar Tracker
(see Chapter 2)
CEA City Energy Analyst
INTRODUCTION
1
1.1 adaptive building envelopes
How people design and construct buildings has not changed in essence
ever since the construction of the first shelters. In its basic definition, a
building is considered as a barrier, an envelope, separating the inside from
the outside environment. Ideally, it protects the occupants from harsh
weather conditions, such as wind, rain, snow, hail, and cold, and also from
intense solar radiation, by keeping the internal space dry and at a tem-
perature comfortable for people.This is achieved by combining insulating
and permeable materials in a vast number of designs to utilise the outside
weather conditions in the best possible way. However, for a large part of
the year and for most places, it is also necessary to condition the internal
space, either by heating it up or cooling it down to reach the comfort range.
Over the years, insulation materials and building systems for heating and
cooling have improved. Today, about one-third of global primary energy
is used for conditioning indoor spaces, producing nearly a quarter of all
man-made greenhouse gas emissions [1]. According to reports from the In-
tergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [1] and the International Energy
Agency [2], the energy-saving potential has been estimated at 50-90%. This
could be achieved by improving buildings infrastructure, by using more
energy efficient technologies, and by more efficient operation of building
management systems, ideally without sacrificing occupants’ comfort. For
building envelopes in particular, efforts and investments need to scale up
dramatically to improve performance by 30% by 2025 [2].
Current building envelopes are predominantly static, without integrated
elements for harvesting solar energy, and manually operated by occupants.
This leaves a large potential for energy savings, on-site energy genera-
tion, and improvement of occupant comfort untapped. Realizing the full
potential of building envelopes requires a robust and cost-effective way
to actively change envelope behaviour at high spatio-temporal resolution.
However, even though various approaches to dynamic envelopes exist,
they are limited to theoretical studies, small-scale prototypes, and single,
exhibition-type prototypes [3, 4]. The existing kinetic envelopes are typically
driven by complex actuating mechanisms comprising of a large number of
1
2 introduction
mechanical components, such as electromotors, rails, pulleys, and cables,

thus reducing the lifespan of the envelope.To realize the full potential of
adaptive, kinetic building envelopes, a robust and cost-effective way to
reliably move their elements is needed. Soft-material actuators, a novel type
of elastic, flexible actuators that utilise material deformation to generate
forces and perform tasks, have recently attracted considerable attention for
their low weight, high power-to-weight ratio, low friction, robustness to
external disturbances, and resilence to harsh weather conditions. As such,
they have been identified in this work as a viable actuation technology to
power the kinetic envelopes.
1.2 soft-material actuators
Soft robotics is a rapidly growing field of robotics that makes use of elastic
and flexible materials and principles causing their deformation for the
construction of robotic components (e.g. actuators and end effectors), parts
of robot bodies (e.g. links and skin), and even entire robots [5, 6]. There is a
plethora of “soft” materials available from different material classes, such
as elastomers, which are intrinsically soft, and also metals and plastics that
may be ysed in specific designs to create extrinsically soft materials (e.g. thin
metal sheets, wires of shape-memory alloys, thermoplastics, and granules).
These materials can be designed to be deformed by a variety of actuation
principles, such as pressure, heat, humidity, magnetic field, and electric field.
This large design space has inspired researchers to develop soft machines
that, compared to their rigid-body counterparts, allow reduced control
complexity in complex tasks (e.g. grasping [7]), more natural, animal-like
motions [8], and new features (e.g. camouflage [9] and climbing walls [10]).
Among soft actuators, the most popular types are fluid-driven elas-
tomeric actuators (FEAs) [11]. FEAs contain voids in their bodies that are
used as channels for pressurised fluid (gas or liquid). When pressurised
fluid is applied, the elastomeric material surrounding the voids expands
according to Pascal’s law, causing a change in the shape of the soft actua-
tor. FEAs are popular because they exhibit a continuum of motion, large
strokes, low friction, low weight, high power-to-weight ratio, and intrinsic
compliance. Therefore, FEAs are very similar in functioning to biological
muscles, carrying great potential for applications on a scale directly useful
to humans, with examples successfully demonstrated in industrial automa-
tion [7], medicine [12] , and human-robot interaction [13]. Furthermore,
FEAs exhibit reduced control complexity due to their intrinsic compliance
1.3 research questions 3
and reduced manufacturing costs due to cheap elastomers, while allowing

complex kinematics and functionalities (see principles of embodiment [14]).
Consequently, the main challenge in working with FEAs is in their design,
fabrication, and control [15]. An additional core challenge in soft robotics is
achieving variable stiffness, due to the inherent compliance of soft mate-
rials [16]. Variable stiffness is one of the most desirable features of robots
operating in complex, unstructured real-world environments, as the robots
that change stiffness can adapt to the environment they are interacting with.
1.3 research questions
The goal of this thesis is to show the feasibility of using soft-material-

actuators as viable motion-driving devices for adaptive photovoltaic build-
ing envelopes. In essence, this problem is disaggregated to six core research
questions.
• What are optimal 2-DOFs soft robotic actuators that can reliably orient
the single facade element in various weather conditions, particularly
in wind?
• How would a modular, distributed pneumatic control system of low

costs look like?
• How could one vary the stiffness of the soft actuator, without increas-
ing the complexity of the actuation system, only by just using the
available compressed-air?
• How could one mass produce these actuators at high quality and
repeatable performance?
• What are the optimal control algorithms of the soft actuator for au-
tonomous solar tracking?
• What is the self-consumption of the soft-robotic-driven adaptive pho-

tovoltaic building envelope?
4 introduction
1.4 research overview
This thesis presents a two-stage research and development process for a

soft-robotics-driven adaptive photovoltaic building envelope. In the first
stage, a novel soft-hard-material pneumatic actuator with variable stiffness
was designed, fabricated, characterised, and modeled, and a basic pneu-
matic orientation control system was developed for a single actuator. The
second stage consisted of scaling up the system and constructing several
multi-module building-scale envelopes. This required the development of
a fabrication method suitable for producing soft actuators at repeatable
quality, and scaling up the pneumatic orientation control system. Finally,
the performance of constructed kinetic envelopes was demonstrated in solar
tracking experiments in real-weather conditions, and their self-consumption
(electricity used for pneumatic actuation) was compared to the photovoltaic
electricity production. Due to its broad scope, the scientific contribution of
this thesis spans multiple disciplines.
1.4.1 Design of a single-body 2-DOF soft-material actuator with corrugated walls
Several single-body two-degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) soft-material actuators

have been previously reported. These actuators consist of three tube-like
chambers radially distributed around a central core. When pressurised one
or two at a time, the chambers inflate, causing a bending of the actuator
and a rotation of the top part of the actuator with respect to the bottom
part. At the same time, Mosadegh et al. [17] showed that soft actuators
with corrugated walls exhibit a higher speed of actuation (50 ms for one
bending cycle compared to several seconds) due to the smaller volume of
air needed for actuation. Furthermore, due to the close proximity of the
inner parts of neighbouring ribs, they start to push against each other when
only slightly inflated. This causes considerable bending of the actuator at
low levels of strain in the material. Motivated by this work, as well as by
the principles of origami-like, unfolding designs [18], the corrugated single-
body 2-DOF actuator was proposed. The single-body requirement, even
though more challenging for fabrication than a design with three separate
chambers, was important for avoiding buckling the actuator under external
load, such as wind, and for reducing the actuator’s complexity (fewer
number of components), thus minimising the maintenance requirements
and production costs. A very careful design of the actuator in 3D was
1.4 research overview 5
required, which entailed finding specific thicknesses and shapes of the

outer and inner chamber ribs to obtain a satisfactory actuation range (±
45º in each axis).
1.4.2 Fabrication of soft actuators
Several state-of-the-art methods were tested with the aim of easily produc-
ing the corrugated single-body three-chambered actuator, called corrugated
SoRo-Track. However, all of them showed limitations, either due to diffi-
culties in achieving leak-free actuators, failing in achieving the required
geometrical complexity, limited support for different types of elastomers,
high process complexity, or long fabrication time. A novel method for fast
and precise scalable production of soft actuators with a moderate com-
plexity of fluidic pathways is proposed in this work. The method is called
Quick-cast. This method reduces the total fabrication time required for the
production of one actuator from 8-10 hours to less than one hour and it
supports a wide variety of elastomers.
Two variants of this method were developed for two settings. One method
was developed for fast prototyping in laboratory conditions with 3D printed
moulds using liquid multi-component silicone rubbers. The other method
was developed for an industrial setting and is based on a standard industrial
process, compression-moulding. It was tested with Neoprene rubber. Tens of
corrugated SoRo-Track actuators were produced using both processes and
then they were compared among each other within each batch to examine
the repeatability of quality and performance. The industrial process showed
advantages over the laboratory process over a large number of samples: the
pressure-deflection curves overlap very well for ten actuators, randomly
selected from a batch of more than 50.
1.4.3 Hybrid soft-hard-material actuator with variable stiffness
Achieving variable stiffness of soft-material actuators is considered one

of the core challenges in soft robotics, due to the inherent compliance of
elastic materials. Recently, this topic has attracted substantial interest [16].
However, proposed actuators typically introduce additional complexity
compared to the initial soft-material-only actuator (such as requiring vac-
uum, electromotors, or high voltage), exhibit a small amplitude of motion
(e.g. McKibben-type actuators), can buckle under external load, and typ-
ically consist of several components. In this work, we propose coupling
6 introduction
the previously introduced single-body three-chambered actuator (corru-

gated SoRo-Track) with a metal 2-DOF joint from classical mechanics. The
metal joint provides structural stability to the soft actuator, thus enabling
more precise and controlled movements, generation of higher forces, and
prevention of torsion, thus avoiding collision of the envelope’s panels in
wind. On the other hand, all the advantages of FEAs are retained, such as
inherent compliance, high power-to-weight ratio, large stroke, low inertia,
and simple manufacturing. In addition, variable stiffness is obtained (200%
increase at 1.9 bar) due to an antagonistic coupling of the moments coming
from the three chambers. This allows variable stiffness while still achieving
a combination of fast actuation speed (≈ 0.1 s), simple actuation (only
compressed-air), and an absence of buckling under external disturbances
(due to the single body form).
1.4.4 Control algorithms
The three-chambered 2-DOF soft actuator was used as a solar tracking

device. The autonomous solar tracking algorithm, which maps three cham-
ber pressures to two angles (azimuth and altitude), was developed and
tested. As the main axes of actuation of the three chambers cannot all be
directly aligned with the azimuth and altitude axes, a zig-zag tracking
motion was used. In order to reduce the tracking error during the transition
between actuator positions, a tracking algorithm with an upper bound on
the tracking during transitions is proposed as well.
1.4.5 Soft-robotic-driven adaptive photovoltaic envelopes
The developed soft actuators (SoRo-Track, corrugated SoRo-Track, and

Hybrid-pneuVSA) were used for construction of soft-robotics-driven pho-
tovoltaic building envelopes. One lab-scale envelope prototype with eight
modules and three building-scale prototypes with 50, 16, and 30 modules
were constructed in total, using different versions of the soft actuator. These
envelopes were used mainly for testing autonomous solar tracking through-
out the day for several days and in a range of weather conditions. The
autonomous solar tracking was compared to two static facade positions:
parallel to the wall and fixed at a certain angle (e.g. 45◦ ) to the wall.
1.4 research overview 7
1.4.6 Modular Pneumatic Control System
Controlling multiple facade modules at a time also requires scaling up the

pneumatic control system and providing orientation measurements for each
panel. First, a pneumatic control system with centralised pressure control
was used. In this system, the electro-pneumatic valves are located in a single
centralised control box, and the pressure is distributed to each chamber
via pneumatic tubes. The envelope in this case is completely noiseless and
there are no moving mechanical components other than soft actuators.
In the second approach, a more integrated, modular, and decentralised
control of compressed-air was tested. A small pneumatic control unit was
developed with several electro-pneumatic valves and a communication bus
(I2 C). This control unit communicates with the orientation sensor at each
envelope module. The central control has bi-directional communication with
all distributed module control units, sending the commands for pressure
regulation and reading sensor values. The control decisions happen in the
central control unit. The control system is modular and scalable; connecting
an additional envelope module in the system would require connecting
only the communication bus (a single multi-pole cable).
1.4.7 Energy consumption
Energy-efficient solar trackers consume only a few percent of the photo-

voltaic energy that they produce for their operation [19]. The self-consumption
of the soft-robotics-driven adaptive photovoltaic building envelopes was
estimated from measurements on the envelope with 16 modules of 40 x
40 cm thin-film copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) PV panels as ap-
proximately 3% for the envelope with 30 modules. For larger envelopes,
self-consumption should further decrease, since more modules would be
powered from a single air compressor.
8 introduction
1.5 organisation of the thesis
This thesis is organised as follows.

Chapter 2 introduces the first soft actuator: the cylindrical two-axis three-
chambered soft actuator called SoRo-Track. It also reports the first successful
solar tracking experiment with this module. The chapter also describes the
fabrication, characterisation, and modeling of the soft actuator, the basic
pneumatic control system, and the solar tracking control algorithm. Finally,
it presents the first building-scale envelope prototype with 50 actuators
mounted on the House of Natural Resources at the ETH Zurich Hoengger-
berg Campus and provides a link to a video showing the first operation of
the envelope. The distribution of the pneumatic air was centralised and the
operation was in an open-loop regime, as there was no orientation sensor
network developed yet.
Chapter 3 introduces the hybrid soft-hard-material actuator with variable
stiffness and reports the envelope-level performance. First, the improved
version of the initial soft actuator, corrugated SoRo-Track, is introduced.
Then, its coupling with a metal universal joint is described; this constitutes
the final version of the actuator with variable stiffness, called Hybrid-
pneuVSA. Two building-scale adaptive photovoltaic envelopes are shown
here: One with 16 corrugated SoRo-Track actuators on the roof of the HPZ
building at the ETH Zurich Hoenggerberg Campus, and the final envelope
prototype with 30 Hybrid-pneuVSAs for a research and innovation unit
known as HiLo [20] on the NEST building at the Swiss Federal Laboratories
for Materials Science and Technology (Empa).
On the single actuator level, this section introduces briefly the novel
Quick-cast fabrication process for the scalable production of complex soft
actuators at high-quality and characterises the Hybrid-pneuVSA by its
pressure-deflection, stiffness, damping, and number of cycles-before-break.
On the envelope level, this section reports fully autonomous solar track-
ing experiments on days with clear sky and in real-weather conditions, such
as wind, rain, clouds, and various temperatures. Both envelopes have sensor
networks for measuring the orientation of modules. The facade at the NEST
building is also equipped with a distributed, modular pneumatic control
system. Further, this section presents measurements of the photovoltaic elec-
tricity production during solar tracking and the energy used for pneumatic
control, validating the assumption of the efficient actuation system.Finally,
this section shows the simulation results of the overall energy contribution
of the adaptive building envelope for a residential unit in Zurich.
1.6 contribution from other authors 9
Chapter 4 introduces a novel method for quick and precise mass produc-
tion of soft actuators, called Quick-cast.
Chapter 5 introduces novel hybrid soft-hard-material two degrees of
freedom actuator (DOFs) pneumatically-driven actuators with variable
stiffness, called Hybrid-pneuVSAs. This section also characterises Hybrid-
pneuVSAs in terms of pressure-deflection, stiffness, and damping. Finally,
a pressure-to-angle/stiffness model is developed and feedforward model-
based control is obtained.
1.6 contribution from other authors
Several people from the Chair of Architecture and Building Systems at

ETH Zurich have strongly contributed to the results presented in this thesis.
Moritz Begle 3D modeled and fabricated soft actuators presented here.
Moritz Begle and Stefan Caranovic provided the 3D models of the room
with the envelope shown in Fig. 3.1. Stefan Caranovic and Ruben Stadler
helped build the final version of the pneumatic control system. Stefan Cara-
novic and Moritz Begle designed and industrially fabricated the external
universal joint. Stefan Caranovic fabricated the chained universal joint at
the mechanical workshop at the Institute of Technology in Architecture
at ETH Zurich Hoenggerberg Campus. Jayathissa Prageeth provided the
simulation results for an office in Zurich with the adaptive photovoltaic
envelope that are shown in Chapter 3.
S O R O - T R A C K : A T W O - A X I S S O F T R O B O T I C P L AT F O R M
2
F O R S O L A R T R A C K I N G A N D B U I L D I N G - I N T E G R AT E D
P H O T O V O LTA I C A P P L I C AT I O N S
We present SoRo-Track, a two-axis soft robotic actuator (SRA) for solar

tracking and building-integrated photovoltaic applications. SRAs are gain-
ing increasing popularity compared to traditional actuators, such as dc
motors and hydraulic or pneumatic pistons, due to their inherent compli-
ance, low morphological complexity, high power-to-weight ratio, resilience
to external shocks and adverse environmental conditions, design flexibility,
ease of fabrication, and low costs. We present the design, modelling and
experimental characterisation of SoRo-Track. Finally, we demonstrate the
suitability of SoRo-Track for solar tracking applications, which makes it a
viable component for dynamic building facades.
Svetozarevic, B., Nagy, Z., Hofer, J., Jacob, D., Begle, M., Chatzi, E., & Schlueter, A. SoRo-Track:
A Two-Axis Soft Robotic Platform for Solar Tracking and Building-Integrated Photovoltaic
Applications. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (2016)
11
12 soro-track
2.1 introduction
A solar tracker is a device that orients a photovoltaic (PV) module towards

the sun as it traverses the sky. Solar tracking can improve the generated
power of a PV module by up to 30-40% per annum compared to a fixed
module tilted at an optimal angle, or by about 70% compared to a hori-
zontally fixed module [19]. Solar trackers are traditionally built from rigid
mechanical components, such as electromotors, gears, rails, cables, and
hydraulic pistons [19]. However, they have not been widely implemented
due to their high costs and often complex and cumbersome structures that
added a substantial weight to the initial PV system [21].
For several years, soft robotic actuators (SRA) have been gaining in-
creasing popularity compared to the aforementioned, traditional actuators.
Successful application examples range from grippers [22–24], over hyper-
redundant manipulators [8, 25–29], to exoskeletons [30, 31]. The reasons for
this popularity are several advantages that they possess compared to hard-
bodied robots. Their inherent compliance makes them intrinsically robust
to small external disturbances [32] and resilient to strong external shocks
and adverse environmental conditions [33–35]. Further, the continuum of
structure deformation with their muscle-like actuation can result in a larger
number of degrees of freedom (DOF) and better spatial integration. In other
words, soft robots exhibit a lower morphological complexity and a higher
power-to-weight ratio, while allowing a higher functional complexity [18, 32,
36]. Finally, customization flexibility and ease of fabrication of soft robots
allow quick design explorations and evaluations [23]. The challenges of soft
robots are slow response times, as well as their design and control [32].
In this paper we introduce SoRo-Track, a two-axis SRA for solar tracking
applications, and, in particular, for integrating PV modules into buildings.
The advantages of SoRo-Track over conventional solar trackers are reduced
mechanical complexity due to fewer movable parts, reduced weight, and
lower fabrication costs. Particularly the low weight of SoRo-Track enables
its integration into building facades or rooftops, where combining several
SoRo-Tracks into a modular shading system and placing it in front of a
window is of special interest (see Fig. 2.1). Such a building shading system,
called Adaptive Solar Facade, can optimally regulate energy flows between
indoor and outdoor environments, provide privacy, or allow views on
occupant’s request [37, 38]. The contributions of this paper are the design,
modelling, characterisation, and control of SoRo-Track, and the successful
demonstration of solar tracking.
2.2 design specification and fabrication 13
Figure 2.1: Adaptive Solar Facade at the House Of Natural Resources, ETH Höng-
gerberg Campus in Zürich, Switzerland, actuated by 50 individually
addressable soft robotics solar trackers. (www.honr.ethz.ch)
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2.2 describes the SoRo-Track

design and its fabrication. Section 2.3 presents its modelling and character-
isation, and addresses the influence of wind on its performance. Section
2.4 details the control system design and demonstrates the solar tracking
performance. Section 2.5 discusses results and concludes the work.
2.2 design specification and fabrication
Two-axis solar tracking requires orienting the PV panel along the azimuth
and altitude angles (see Section 2.3). For this purpose, three cylindrical
chambers are symmetrically distributed around the centre of the actuator
(Fig. 2.2a and 2.2b). The surrounding body that contains the chambers,
cylinder A, is expanded at two horizontal levels, forming two thick circular
disks, to allow mounting a PV module and mounting of the actuator onto
the cantilever (Fig. 2.2g).
When a single chamber is inflated, it expands the most where its walls
are the thinnest – which is to the outside, creating pressure on the top and
the bottom disks. This pressure causes the top platform to rotate around
14 soro-track
CIGS PV Panel
Backplate
Meshring
Junction-Box
Adapter
Soft - Actuator
Cantilever
Cable Net
PV Power Cable
Figure 2.2: SoRo-Track with thin-film PV module mounted on a cantilever.
the motion limiting part of the actuator, which is the remaining part of
the cylinder A that contains the other two chambers. Notice that the axis
of rotation is parallel to the line defined by the centres of the other two
chambers, and lies close to the edge of the cylinder A. However, it is not
fixed relative to the bottom disk, but changes with the pressure in the
chamber. Therefore, the rotation of the top platform is considered relative
to the platform orientation when all chambers are deflated and the two
disks are parallel.
The main performance requirements for solar tracking applications are
the range of motion of SoRo-Track in both angles and its ability to carry the
PV panel in outdoor weather conditions, which are expressed through the
stiffness and damping parameters of SoRo-Track. The design parameters
can be divided into geometrical and material parameters. The geometrical
parameters are the diameter dch and height hch of the cylindrical chambers,
the diameter dcyl and height hcyl of the cylinder A, and the diameter dcir of
the circle on which the centres of the chambers lie. The material parameters
are hardness Shore A index, tensile strength, and elongation at brake. The
thickness of the top and bottom disks should be chosen to prevent the
deformation of the chambers in the vertical direction. The diameters of the
top and bottom disks, as well as the diameter and height of the cylinder
B, where the inlet tubes are located, can be freely selected to achieve
mechanical stability of the fixations.
2.2 design specification and fabrication 15
Figure 2.3: Design, fabrication, and final assembly of SoRo-Track as a building

facade module. a) Horizontal cross-section of SoRo-Track; b) Vertical
cross-section of SoRo-Track; c), d) Parts of 3D-printed mold; e) Fabri-
cated parts of SoRo-Track; f) Final SoRo-Track after gluing; The values
of design parameters are: rcyl = 25 mm, rcir = 11.5 mm, rch = 8.5 mm,
hcyl = 35 mm, hch = 33 mm.
The fabrication process is based on PneuNets [23] (Fig. 2.2c–2.2f). The

SoRo-Track is produced from a silicon rubber that is a mixture of Elas-
tosil Vario 15 (Shore A index 15) and Vario 40 (Shore A index 40), from
Wacker Chemie AG, resulting in the Shore A index of the compound of
approximately 33. This gave sufficient stiffness to SoRo-Track to carry the
PV module.
In the experiment we use a thin-film copper indium gallium selenide
(CIGS) PV module produced by Flisom AG. The panel on which the PV
cells are laminated has a dimension of 400 x 400 mm and is made of alu-
minium. SoRo-Track weighs about 190 g, while the total weight, including
the cantilever and the PV module, is about 800 g.
16 soro-track
2.3 modelling and characterisation
In this section we discuss the kinematic and dynamic modelling of the actu-
ator. We use quasi-static pressure-deflection curves and shaker experiments
to identify the models. Then, the dynamic model is used to simulate the
behaviour of SoRo-Track in wind.
2.3.1 Kinematic Model
The two rotations of SoRo-Track, the azimuth (θ) – around the vertical
axis of the PV module and the altitude (ϕ) – around the horizontal axis
of the module, and their relation to the sun angle are shown in Fig. 2.4.
We develop the model phenomenologically and give the mathematical
description below.
When chamber 1 is being inflated, the top platform will start rotating
around the axis which is parallel to the line defined by the centres of
chambers 2 and 3, causing the altitude angle ϕ to increase. If the actuator is
produced perfectly radially symmetric, the azimuth angle θ should remain
zero. Therefore, by inflating chamber 1 solely, only positive altitude angles
can be achieved. This is represented on the azimuth-altitude graph as the
main direction of actuation of chamber 1 (Fig. 2.4b). Similar holds for
the other two chambers, by rotating the actuation direction by 120◦ . To
obtain a combined azimuth-altitude (θ, ϕ) orientation, a certain pressure
combination in two of the three chambers needs to be applied. Inflating the
third chamber while two other chambers are pressurised will counteract
the rotation already obtained by these two chambers. This implies that
the azimuth-altitude plane is divided in regions by the main directions of
actuation of individual chambers (Fig. 2.4b). In brief, the kinematic model
of the SoRo-Track is given by
" # " #
θ (p) θ(p)
= R·A· (2.1)
ϕ(p) ϕ(p)
where p = [ p1 , p2 , p3 ], and pi is the pressure in chamber i, θ(p) =

[θ1 ( p1 ), θ2 ( p2 ), θ3 ( p3 )]T , and ϕ(p) = [ ϕ1 ( p1 ), ϕ2 ( p2 ), ϕ3 ( p3 )]T are quasi-
static pressure-deflection curves that have been determined experimentally
(see Fig 2.5a and b). We found the azimuth and altitude ranges of the
actuator to be [−18◦ , 18◦ ] and [−10◦ , 20◦ ], respectively. R selects the region,
and is given by
n PV cell
φ
Equator
2.3 modelling and characterisation 17
S
θref θ
a)
N
Polar Axis Main direction φ (altitude)
of actuation
Sun of Ch 1
PV cell
Region III Region II

p1 ≥ 0 p1 > 0
p2 > 0 p2 = 0
φref p3 = 0 p3 ≥ 0
150° 30°
n PV cell
Ch 3 Ch 2
φ
θ (azimuth)
Equator 210° Ch 1 330°
S
θref θ
Main direction
Main direction of actuation
Main direction φ (altitude) of actuation of Ch 3
of actuation of Ch 2 Region I
PV cell
a) of Ch 1 b) p1 = 0, p2 ≥ 0, p3 > 0
Figure 2.4: Definitions of SoRo-Track angles. a) SoRo-Track orientation in spher-

ical coordinate system; b) Back view on SoRo-Track and the PV
module.
" #
R1 R2 R3
R= (2.2)
R1 R2 R3
where

 1

 pi = 0 ∧ pmod(i,3)+1 ≥ 0
Ri = ∧ pmod(i+1,3)+1 > 0, i ∈ {1, 2, 3}, (2.3)


0 else.

Finally, in (2.1), A is given by

" #
A1 0
A= (2.4)
0 A2
where
   
0 m12 m13 0 n12 n13
   
A1 = 
m21 0  ,A2 = n21
m23   0 ,
n23  (2.5)
m31 m32 0 n31 n32 0
18 soro-track
20 30 30 Single chamber
θ3(p3) Model
φ1(p1) Ch 1 Two chambers
20
20
10 Ch 1 & 2 Ch 1 & 3
θ (azimuth) [°]
φ (altitude) [°]
φ (altitude) [°]
10
10
θ1(p1)
0 0
0
−10
−10 φ3(p3) Ch 2 Ch 3
−10 −20
θ2(p2) φ2(p2)
Ch 2 & 3
−20 −20 −30
0 0.5 1 1.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 −30 −20 −10 0 10 20 30
a) Pressure [bar] b) Pressure [bar] c) θ (azimuth) [°]
Figure 2.5: a,b) Quasi-static pressure-deflection characterization of SoRo-Track;

c) (θ, ϕ) realisations of one or two chambers inflating at a time and a
model of single chamber inflations.
where {mij , nij } ∈ R+[0,1]

, i, j ∈ {1, 2, 3}, are weighting coefficients. In sum-
mary, the final (θ, ϕ) orientation is obtained by the weighted linear combi-
nation of the individual chamber contributions.
Measured (θ, ϕ) realisations when one or two chambers are inflated at a
time are shown in Fig. 2.5c. The measured main directions of actuation of
individual chambers follow the kinematic model very well. Slight offsets
are due to the imperfections of fabrication conditions. On the other hand,
the (θ, ϕ) orientations when two chambers are inflated at a time (curves in
red), are not straight lines for chambers 1 and 2, and 1 and 3. This is due to
the way the cables from the converter of the PV module were attached in
the setup. These cables are bulky and stiff and they create a certain force
on the actuator.
2.3.2 Dynamic Model
SoRo-Track is modelled as a lumped mass-spring-damper system with

two axes of rotation, including parameters to model coupling between two
rotations. The continuous state space model can be written as
Ẋ(p) = Ad (p) · X(p) + Bd (p) · ktk (2.6)

where X(p) = [θ (p), θ̇ (p), ϕ(p), ϕ̇(p)] T and

 
0 1 0 0
 
 −κθθ (p) −δθθ (p) −κ ϕθ (p) −δϕθ (p) 
Ad (p)=  (2.7)
0 0 0 1
 
 
−κθ ϕ (p) −δθ ϕ (p) −κ ϕϕ (p) −δϕϕ (p)
 
0
 
cos(φ) · λθ (p)
Bd (p) =  (2.8)
0
 
 
sin(φ) · λ ϕ (p)
k ij dij 1
κij = ; δij = ; λj = (2.9)
Φ0j + Φm
j Φ0j + Φm
j Φ0j + Φm
j
where {i, j} ∈ {θ, ϕ}, k ij are spring coefficients, dij are damping coeffi-
cients, Φ0j is moment of inertia of SoRo-Track, Φm j is moment of inertia
of the mounted PV plate, t is the total external momentum acting on the
actuator, and φ is the angle between x-axis and t. We assume that the
angular velocity of one rotation does not affect the other rotation, and set
δθ ϕ = δϕθ = 0. This leads to eight unknown parameters to identify.
To identify the parameters, two experiments were conducted using the
setup shown in Fig 2.6. First, the resonance frequency of SoRo-Track was
determined using a free oscillation experiment to be about 20 Hz. Then, a
forced oscillation experiment is performed using a shaker for parameter
identification over the frequency range [0, 4] kHz. The resonant frequency of
SoRo-Track including the PV module is approximately 3 Hz (Fig. 2.7a). The
system identification was performed in frequency domain using MATLAB
System Identification Toolbox.
Notice that the spring and damping coefficients are modelled as functions
of pressures in the chambers. The identification was carried out for different
pressure configurations: { p1 , p2 , p3 } ∈ {0.5, 0.8, 1.1} bar. The values of
spring and damping coefficients as functions of the pressures in chamber 1
and 2, for constant pressure in chamber 3, are shown in Fig. 2.7b. The plots
for a constant pressure in other chambers are similar. The plots show how
high damping and high stiffness are mutually exclusive.
20 soro-track
4 5 6 7
3
1 2
12 11 10
1 Analog Output Amplifier DataPhysics SignalForce P30

2 Real-Time Controller National Instrument compactRIO 9073
3 Analog Force Amplifier MMF IEPE M32
4 Analog Inpute(AI) Module National Instrument 9205
5 Digital Output(DO) Module National Instrument 9476
6 Analog Output(AO) Module National Instrument 9381
7 Shaker DataPhysics SignalForce V4
8 Load Cell / Force Sensor Dytran 5860B
9 SoRo-Track Two-axis, three-chambers SRA
10 Linear Accelerometers Adafruit ADXL 335
11 Valves Festo 2/2-way
12 Pressure Sensor Honeywell HSC DANN030PGAA5
compactRIO AO Force Accelerometer 1

AO amp. Shaker
module Sensor Accelerometer 2
Log file
Accelerometer 3
AI AI amp.
SoRo-Track
Real-time loop module
Pressure Ch 1
DO In
FPGA loop tank Out Valves Ch 2
module Ch 3
Figure 2.6: Experimental setup for identification of the dynamic model parame-
ters.
2.3.3 Robustness to Wind Loads
After the identification and validation of the model (by comparing the
frequency responses of both experimental methods), SoRo-Track behaviour
in wind can be simulated using appropriate wind data as input. Two
specific actuator configurations are selected for wind simulation: (i) high
stiffness - low damping, occurring at high pressures in the chambers, and
Magnitude [dB]
0
High spring coeff.
−20 High damping coeff.
−40
−60
0
−45
Phase [°]
−90
−135
−180
a) 100 Frequency (Hz) 101
1.1 330 1.1 0.9

1 320 1 0.8
0.9 310 0.9 0.7
p2 [bar]
p2 [bar]
0.8 300 0.8 0.6

0.7 290 0.7
0.5
0.6 280 0.6
κθθ δθθ 0.4
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1
b) p1 [bar] (p3 const.) p1 [bar] (p3 const.)
Average config. 2
25 1 High spring coeff.
20 High damping ceoff.
Angle [º]
15
10
0
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
c) Time [s]
Figure 2.7: Dynamic characterisation of SoRo-Track. a) Bode plots of the SoRo-

Track transfer functions for two characteristic stiffness-damping com-
binations; b) An example of stiffness and damping coefficients for
different pressure combinations; c) Wind simulation for these two
stiffness-damping combinations.
(ii) low stiffness - high damping, occurring at low pressures in the chambers
(Fig. 2.7b). The transfer functions of these two actuator configurations show
that the most robust pressure configuration depends on the spectrum of the
wind that is exciting the actuator (Fig. 2.7a). For wind frequencies below
the resonance frequency of the actuator, high stiffness is favourable, i.e.,
the chambers should be pressurized. For frequencies above the resonant
frequency, the chambers should be deflated. This is also illustrated in
Fig. 2.7c, where in area 1 high damping is more beneficial than high
stiffness and in area 2 the opposite is the case.
22 soro-track
2.4 solar tracking
For given sun angles, solar tracking is achieved if the azimuth and altitude
angles of the SoRo-Track are aligned with the sun angles (Fig. 2.4). For this
purpose we developed an orientation control algorithm and tested it in
outdoor solar tracking experiments.
2.4.1 Orientation Control
The orientation control is based on the measurements of the azimuth and

altitude angles of SoRo-Track using an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU)
attached to the back of the PV module (Fig. 2.8). The main challenge was
to find a 2-angles-to-3-pressures mapping strategy. It consists of several
steps. First, the region in which the reference (θre f , ϕre f ) orientation lies
is determined geometrically, as shown in Fig. 2.4b. Second, the use of
chambers is determined by (2.2). In other words, if the reference orientation
is in Region i, first chamber i needs to be deflated, and then the other two
chambers are used, one at a time in a feedback algorithm, to achieve the
reference orientation. The feedback algorithm, set as a bang-bang controller,
is depicted in Fig. 2.9a. Consider the reference orientation A, for example.
First, lines parallel to the main directions of actuation of the two active
Figure 2.8: SoRo-Track – A two-axis SRA for solar tracking applications. Left:
Back view on the SoRo-Track. Top right: Front view on the SoRo-
Track. Bottom right: Sparkfun breadboard with IMU 9150 sensor from
InvenSense.
2.4 solar tracking 23
Main direction φ [o] 20

of actuation (altitude)
of Ch 1 15
Region II
R5 R4
Region III
C (2) inflation Ch 3 10 End
A (θA,φA )
φ (altitude) [o]
(1) inflation Ch 1 5
Ch 2 R1
Ch 3 0
Start
θ [o]
−5
Ch 1 (azimuth)
210° 330°
−10 R2 R3
Main direction −15

Main direction B
of actuation
of actuation Region I of Ch 3 −20
of Ch 2 −20 −10 0 10 20
a) b) θ (azimuth) [o]
0 20
R4 R5
5 10
φ (altitude) [o]
R5 R4 R1
0 End 0
R2 R3
−10
Angle Reference
R1 −20
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Start
5
10
θ (azimuth) [o]
R3 R4
0 R2 R3
0
5 R1 R2 R5
0 −10
20 −10 0 10 20 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
θ (azimuth) [o] c) Time [s]
Figure 2.9: Orientation feedback control of SoRo-Track. a) Diagram of the control

strategy (see text for explanation); b,c) Example plots of θ and ϕ and
their reference values as a function of time.
chambers are constructed through A, called guiding lines (red dashed lines).
Then, one of the chambers is inflated until SoRo-Track reaches one of the
guiding lines (blue arrow 1). Then, the second chamber relevant for that
region is inflated, moving along the second guiding line (blue arrow 2),
until the reference point is reached. Analogous strategies are implemented
in the other two regions (points B and C). Typical experimental results of
the reference tracking are shown in Fig. 2.9b and 8c.
2.4.2 Experiments
The sun tracking experiment is set on the roof of the authors’ office building
in Zurich (47°240 N, E8°300 E) and was performed on a clear day in August.
24 soro-track
The sun position for this location and time is calculated with Rhinoceros
3D using the DIVA plugin [39]. During the experiment, the altitude and
azimuth angles of the module were adjusted every 5 minutes. For each time
step, the module DC power output at maximum power point (MPP) was
measured using the I-V-characteristic measurement device PVPM 2510C
from Photovoltaik Engineering.
In addition to solar tracking, the module power output at the reference
position (PV module tilted 12◦ w.r.t. the facade in the altitude angle, and
oriented to the South) was measured for each time step, which represents
the case of conventional building-integrated PVs (Case I, Fig. 2.10). For this
sunny day, the measured power gain from solar tracking was 36%. The
experimental results correspond very well to the model of the PV power
output. In the model, irradiance on the tilted module plane is calculated
considering the three components of beam, diffuse sky, and ground reflected
radiation [40]. The DC power output of the PV module is calculated by
taking into account the actuator range, the active PV area, and its electrical
conversion efficiency.
Changing the reference position to parallel to the facade of the building,
the model predicts a potential gain of 61% (Case II). And if the SoRo-Track
azimuth range could be expanded from ±20◦ to ±45◦ , the predicted power
gain is 73% (Case III). Note that the energy gain from solar tracking is
100
90
Normalised PV Power Output [%]
80
70
60
Case I (power gain 36 %)
50
Case II (power gain 61 %)
40 Case III (power gain 73 %)
30
measurements
20 reference orientation: 12º towards the facade
reference orientation: parallel to the facade
10 two-axis sun tracking (limited actuator range)
two-axis sun tracking (extended actuator range)
0
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Hour of day [h]
Figure 2.10: Sun tracking experiment on August 31st , 2015.

2.5 conclusion 25
specific for the meteorological condition at this location and day. (See video:
https://vimeo.com/152272960)
2.5 conclusion
We have designed, fabricated, modelled, and experimentally characterized

the SoRo-Track actuator. We used the obtained dynamical model to simulate
its behaviour and described how a combination of pressures in chambers
can be used to improve performance in wind. Finally, we developed the
orientation control system and showed its application for solar tracking.
We compared the power output of the PV module with and without solar
tracking. We discussed the power gains due to the application of SoRo-Track
on buildings. Our results show that SoRo-Track is suitable for solar tracking
and can be a viable component in dynamic building facades, improving the
energy efficiency of buildings.
S O F T R O B O T I C D R I V E N P H O T O V O LTA I C B U I L D I N G
3
E N V E L O P E F O R A D A P T I V E E N E R G Y A N D C O M F O RT
MANAGEMENT
Buildings account for the largest share of global primary energy consump-
tion and nearly one quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, increas-
ing buildings’ energy efficiency and providing on-site renewable energy
generation is key to climate change mitigation and to creating sustainable
cities. Among building elements, the envelope has the most influence on
heating, cooling, and lighting demands, as well as on occupant comfort.
Current envelopes are predominantly static and are only marginally able
to adapt to changing conditions outside of the building and occupants’
needs inside of it. This leaves large potentials for energy savings, on-site
energy generation, and improvement of occupant comfort untapped. To
realize the full potential of building envelopes, a robust and cost-effective
way to actively change envelope behaviour in a high spatio-temporal res-
olution is needed. Here we report on a novel soft-robotic-driven adaptive
building envelope that can offset the entire energy demand of the space
behind it during day-lit hours, while using only 3% or less of the energy
generated for its operation over the year. Independently addressable soft
robotic actuators allow for an unprecedented fine-grained manipulation of
envelope elements for optimal local solar energy generation, passive heat-
ing, reduction of cooling demands, and daylight utilization. Expanding on
the concept, if equipped with reflecting elements, the adaptive envelope can
be also used to redistribute solar radiation among neighbouring buildings
for thermal energy generation or mitigation of urban heat-island effects.
Our compact and cost-effective soft actuators are applied in a distributed
way on a large scale, laying the foundation for robust, lightweight, and
modular adaptive envelopes. The possibility to manage energy and comfort
on building and urban scales is expected to significantly reduce the energy
consumption of the built environment, towards near zero-energy buildings,
and improve both indoor and outdoor comfort.
Svetozarevic, B., Nagy, Z., Begle, M., Jayathissa, P., Caranovic, S., Shepherd, R. F., Hischier,
I., Hofer, J., & Schlueter, A. Soft robotic driven photovoltaic building envelope for adaptive
energy and comfort management. Nature Energy. In Revision. (2018)
27
28 soft robotic driven adaptive building envelope
3.1 introduction
The building sector accounts for the largest share of global primary en-
ergy consumption (32% in 2010) and produces nearly one quarter of all
greenhouse gas emissions [1]. These emissions may double or triple by
mid-century due to further urbanisation [1, 2]. Likewise, the energy-saving
potential of buildings has been estimated at 50-90% [1]. Consequently, im-
proving building stock has been identified as key to meeting future energy
and climate targets [41–43]. The stringent energy and emission standards
recently adopted in many OECD countries require profound changes to
convert buildings from major energy consumers to energy-neutral or even
energy-positive entities [2, 44]. In particular for building envelopes, efforts
and investments need to scale up dramatically to improve performance by
30% by 2025, as recently stated by the International Energy Agency (IEA)2.
The envelope is one of the most relevant building elements for reduc-
ing operational energy consumption. It is responsible for the transfer of
energy in the form of daylight, heat, and air between the two stochastic
environments: external, weather-driven and internal, occupant-driven. By
improving response to the two dynamic environments, building energy
consumption can be significantly reduced while maintaining a comfort-
able indoor environment [3]. Of particular interest is the control of solar
radiation as it has a significant impact on thermal comfort and daylight
quality. To do so, dynamic envelopes have been proposed [3, 4]. Compared
to current envelopes, they are able to adjust their permeability and can
adapt to changing environmental conditions and user demands at high
spatio-temporal resolutions. Even though various approaches to dynamic
envelopes exist, they are limited to theoretical studies, small-scale proto-
types, or single exhibition-type prototypes [3, 4].
A major challenge in bringing dynamic envelopes into the mainstream is
the cost and reliability of the actuation system. The system must be compli-
ant with the external weather conditions, requiring minimal maintenance
over the lifetime of the building. Silicone-elastomer-based actuators, as com-
monly found in soft robotics [23, 45–47], have been identified as a simple,
low cost, and robust solution. The toughness, relative chemical inertness,
and low glass-transition temperature of silicone elastomers make them ideal
for tolerating external environmental conditions, such as rain, cold, heat,
and wind [48]. Pneumatics is commonly used to power these actuators,
due to the speed and specific power of these systems [23, 48, 49]. In the
past, soft-material actuators have mainly been used for robotic applications,
3.2 working principle and use cases of soft robotic building envelope 29
such as grippers [50], exoskeletons [51], manipulators [52], and animal-like

robots [6, 8]. The design freedom of soft actuators provides many opportu-
nities; however, they also present challenges in defining forms, materials,
and control strategies appropriate to specific applications [15].
Here, we report on the development and use of soft-material actuators as
an enabling and efficient motion-driving technology for modular adaptive
envelopes to dynamically manage building energy and occupant comfort.
Combining a hard-material universal joint with a soft-material pneumatic
actuator presents a novel approach to regulating mechanical impedance of
soft actuators, which enables stabilisation of façade elements in wind. We
demonstrate the feasibility of our approach by constructing two building-
scale soft-robotic-driven adaptive envelope prototypes with 16 and 30
elements, respectively, with integrated thin-film Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) PV
modules, and we demonstrate their performance in real weather conditions,
in terms of precision of dynamic motion and energy gains during solar
tracking. Working principle and use cases of soft robotic building envelope
3.2 working principle and use cases of soft robotic building

envelope
The envelope consists of multifunctional modules that are mounted on a

lightweight cable or rod-net structure, as the outer layer of a glazed facade
(Fig. 3.1). Each module is equipped with a soft pneumatic actuator which
allows individual orientation in two axes. Electric cables and pneumatic
supply are integrated in the rod-net supporting structure. As the entire
envelope is very lightweight (95 m for a 10 m2 envelope with 30 modules),
it can be applied on various building types, such as office, residential, and
commercial buildings and in front of almost any glazed façade or rooftop.
Equipped with thin-film photovoltaic (PV) panels (Fig. 3.1a and Fig. 3.1b),
the envelope is not only able to actively control the solar irradiation, but, in
addition, generates electrical energy. Compared to static PV panels, two-axis
solar tracking can increase annual electricity generation between 30 and
40% [19]. The optimum panel orientation is a balance between electricity
generation and solar irradiation to minimize the building’s heating, cooling
and lighting demands [37, 53]. For example, in summer, modules are
preferentially oriented towards the sun to maximize shading and reduce
cooling demands. In winter, open configurations are preferred to minimize
heating and lighting demands. Mounted in front of an office in a moderate
climate, the envelope was able to cover 62% of the buildings energy demand
on a sunny day in winter and 270% on a sunny day in summer [54].
Equipped with reflective elements (Fig. 3.1c), the envelope becomes a
unique tool to manage energy and comfort on an urban scale. Excess solar
irradiation is reflected off a building envelope towards a nearby building or
the sky. Thus, solar energy is optimally distributed in space to minimize
the overall energy need of the built environment. In building areas lacking
solar irradiation, reflected solar irradiation can be directed onto neighbour-
ing buildings for indirect daylighting and heating [55]. Alternatively, the
radiation can be redirected onto highly efficient building-integrated hybrid
photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) collectors for simultaneous production of heat
and electricity [56]. Sunlight can also be concentrated towards single or
multiple focal points and used for applications such as concentrating pho-
tovoltaics (CPV) [57] or optical fibre-based daylighting systems [58]. Lastly,
reflection towards the sky provides an efficient method to mitigate urban
heat island effects [59–61]. An initial prototype of the reflective dynamic
solar envelope on a building at ETH Zurich in Switzerland is shown in
Extended Data Fig. 3.16.
3.3 two-axis hybrid soft-hard-material pneumatic actuator
The main enabling component of the proposed module is a novel two-axis

hybrid soft-hard-material pneumatic actuator with adjustable compliance
(Fig. 3.2). The actuator combines the best of two robotics worlds: the pre-
cision and structural stability of rigid-body robots and the inherent com-
pliance, intrinsic robustness to small disturbances, resilience to outside
weather conditions, fabrication customizability, and low weight of soft-
material robots. The soft actuator’s is made of a ribbed elastomer, neoprene
rubber, with three identical chambers distributed radially around a central
vertical opening. Cables from the facade module, such as PV electricity
and orientation sensor cables, pass through the central opening. When one
of the chambers is inflated, a uniform force is applied to the walls of the
chamber. As the exterior wall of the chamber is thinner than the interior
wall, it experiences a greater deformation. This results in the entire actuator
bending towards the other two chambers. By adjusting the pressures in the
three chambers, actuation in two-axis is achieved.
Soft actuators completely made of elastomer lack structural stability,
which can be challenging in heavy winds. To achieve active stabilisation
and stiffening of soft actuators, different approaches exist [16], such as mate-
3.3 two-axis hybrid soft-hard-material pneumatic actuator 31
Figure 3.1: Working principle and use cases of the soft robotic building envelope.
a, b, A room with a dynamic solar envelope on summer (a) and
winter (b) days and qualitative representations of physical effects
that the envelope can control. c, A room with a reflective dynamic
envelope. This envelope allows redistribution of solar irradiation and
daylight within the built environment, by reflecting it to a neighbour-
ing building or to the sky. d, A two-axis soft-robotics-driven envelope
module mounted on a rod-net structure. (i) Thin-film CIGS PV panel
or mirror, (ii) orientation sensor (inertial measurement unit - IMU),
(iii) PV junction box with a bypass diode, (iv) soft robotic actuator, (v)
universal joint, (vi) cantilever, (vii) pneumatic-control module, and
(viii) tubes holding electric cables and pneumatic tubes.
rial jamming or tendon-fluidic mechanisms [62]. However, these approaches

typically increase the complexity of the system, e.g. by using vacuum or
additional electromotors besides the pneumatics actuation. In this work, we
combine a universal two degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) metal joint, known as
a U-joint, from classical rigid-body mechanics with a soft actuator to obtain
a hybrid soft-hard-material actuator with adjustable impedance. The top
and bottom plates of the soft actuator are attached to the U-joint (Fig. 3.2a).
The U-joint prevents torsion of the actuators and enables modulation of

the mechanical impedance of the actuator. When all three chambers are
inflated, three antagonistically coupled moments are generated on the U-
joint, increasing the frictional force of its hinges. By making use of positive
pressure only, which is already available in the system, the proposed hybrid
actuator allows to control stiffness without increasing the system’s complex-
ity. Compared to existing hard-body two-axis variable stiffness actuators,
which typically require two or more electromotors for operation [63], the
actuator is compact, lightweight (≈ 300g), and features muscle-like actua-
tion [14]. The soft actuator is fabricated in a single injection-moulding step
as a unitary body (see Extended Data Figure 3.7). This fabrication process
is, therefore, ready for an industrial scale-up (see Methods).
Experimental characterization of the hybrid actuator is shown in Fig-
ures 3.2d-g in terms of actuation range, pressure-deflection characteristic,
repeatability of motion, and variable impedance. The actuator achieves a
range of ≈ 55◦ in roll and ≈ 47◦ in pitch direction at 2 bar. This pressure has
been identified as a maximum pressure under which the soft actuator with-
stands 1,000 cycles before failure. The recommended pressure for 20-years
lifetime (more than 30,000 cycles) is 1.6 bar. The pressure-deflection charac-
teristic was obtained in a quasi-static inflation-deflation experiment, where
angle measurements were taken after the soft actuator had reached its final
expansion for a given pressure (Fig, 3.2e; see Methods for details). Due
to the ribbed structure of the soft actuator, whose inner ribs only expand
and unfold slightly during inflation, the pressure-deflection characteristic
is close to linear. No hyper-extension regions of the elastomer are reached,
thus avoiding hysteresis effects.
3.4 envelope control
To control the dynamic modular building envelope, a hierarchical strategy

is used: a low-level controller dealing with the orientation of the individual
modules and a high-level controller considering the facade as a system. The
goal of the high-level controller is to address energy and comfort-related
effects.
For low-level control, each facade module is equipped with an inertial
measurement unit (IMU) which provides orientation measurements in
terms of roll and pitch angles. The orientation feedback is compared to
the reference values, control signals are calculated in real-time, and sent
to a pneumatic control system (Fig. 3.3a, 3.3b). The roll-pitch plane (Fig.
3.4 envelope control 33
Figure 3.2: Working principle and characterization of two-axis hybrid soft-hard-

material pneumatic actuator. a, Soft-hard-material actuator: soft ac-
tuator with a stainless-steel outer universal joint with 2 DOFs. b,c,
Vertical sections of the finite element model of the soft actuator when
one of the three chambers is inflated. d, Roll-pitch plane showing the
main axes of rotation and the actuator’s angle range. e, Repeatability
of motion for 50 consecutive inflation-deflation cycles of one chamber.
f, Adjustable stiffness effect: displacement over external torque char-
acteristics for different pressures in the chambers. As pressure in all
three chambers increases, the stiffness of the actuator increases. The
maximum stiffening factor at 1.6 bar with this actuator design and
material is 2.5. g, Adjustable damping effect: Damping also increases
with an increase in the common pressure in the three chambers.
3.3c) is divided into three regions corresponding to the three pneumatic

chambers. Depending on the region, the control algorithm decides which of
the chambers to use to move the actuator from the current orientation to the
desired one (see Methods). The soft actuator was able to achieve reference
tracking with ±2.5◦ precision without substantial overshooting.
For high-level control, a simulation framework, considering building
space and building systems, is used to minimize the net-energy demand [64].
Solar irradiation and building system performance are coupled to find the
optimal module angles for given weather conditions.
The envelope also responds to occupants’ requirements for visual comfort,
such as opening the envelope for view, closing the envelope for privacy, or
closing some parts of the envelope e.g. to avoid glare. A simplified user
interface has been integrated which allows to run the envelope in open,
closed, or auto mode. The latter will optimize for energy performance.
Alternatively, a more advanced user interface is available, which allows to
address parts of the facade or individual modules. It is implemented as a
graphical application and runs on a smart hand-held device or on a touch-
panel mounted on a wall. Finally, if user inputs are monitored within the
facade control system, a learning-based algorithm could be implemented to
provide a personalized envelope response [65].
3.5 envelope performance in real weather conditions
A full scale 3.9 x 3.2 m envelope prototype with 16 modules has been built
and installed on a building at ETH Zurich in Switzerland (Extended Data
Fig. 3.13) to test the control, dynamic actuation, PV performance, and wind
stability in realistic weather conditions. Each module is equipped with
thin-film CIGS PV cells. Performance in solar tracking was assessed by
measuring PV power output (at maximum power point), global horizontal
irradiation, and vertical and horizontal angles of the modules at regular
time intervals. For comparison, performance of the modules at a vertical tilt
(i.e. angle relative to the façade) of 10° and 45◦ was measured in between
each time interval. These angles are close to positions of a static BIPV
facade in closed mode and with yearly optimal tilt (55◦ for this location),
respectively, however restricted by the range of the actuator. Details of the
solar tracking algorithm are given in the Methods section.
Results for a clear summer day are shown in Fig. 3.4 for a single façade
element and the entire façade, respectively. The facade is oriented 23◦ from
the south towards the west. Therefore, the PV energy gains from solar
tracking were larger in the morning than in the afternoon. The facade
started receiving solar radiation only after 10 AM due to the shadow of a
3.5 envelope performance in real weather conditions 35
Figure 3.3: Orientation feedback control of the envelope. a, Diagram of the enve-
lope’s orientation feedback control system. b, Control performance of
one module during the figure-of-eight reference tracking. Zig-Zag ref-
erence tracking algorithm with ±2.5◦ precision is applied. c, Schematic
diagram of the pneumatic control system. d, Tilt and azimuth angles
over time during the figure-of-eight reference tracking.
neighbouring building. Furthermore, as the single panel was measured in

situ on the facade, there was self-shadowing from other facade modules
between 10 AM and 11 AM. Energy gains for a single facade module
were 82% and 21% as compared to a static module tilted at 9◦ and 51◦ ,
respectively. For the entire facade, energy gains of 47% and 15%, compared
to the static facade tilted at 10◦ and 45◦ , respectively, were obtained. The
energy gain of the entire facade is smaller than the energy gain of the
single module multiplied by the number of facade elements. There are two
reasons for this. The first one is that the thin-film PV modules used on the
facade do not have identical I-V curves, due to manufacturing tolerances
and slight misalignment of the modules. Therefore, a mismatch between the
PV cells reduces the overall PV energy output of the facade. Secondly, when
the angle of incident sunlight is high, mutual shading of modules is more
significant compared to a single module. This can significantly reduce the
energy gain from solar tracking [66]. Effects due to partial shading can be
reduced if concentrated multi-junction PV cells are used in the centre of the

top plate with a focusing optical system instead of thin-film PV modules.
Figure 3.4: Solar tracking experiments with a single module (a,b,c,d) and the
entire envelope (e,f,g,h). a,b,The results show comparison of the
dynamic solar envelope in three different modes: (i) two-axis solar
tracking, (ii) static parallel to the wall, i.e. tilted at about 10◦ from
the wall, and (iii) static tilted at about 45◦ , which is close to a yearly
optimal tilt. The envelope was cycled through these three states
throughout the day. b,f, Global horizontal irradiation on a horizontal
surface. c,d,g,h, Statistics of the last two minutes of roll and pitch
angles in each of the three states in each cycle. Each box shows the
median 50% of all samples closest to the median value (Interquartile
range), and the two lines outside the box show the lowest and highest
observations. For single module solar tracking, the angle limit was
±2.5◦ , and for the whole facade solar tracking ±3◦ .
Influence of real-weather conditions on façade performance are presented

in Fig. 3.5. Measurements of the PV power output, global horizontal irradi-
3.6 energy benefits of the envelope as part of the building service system
ation, wind speed, temperature, and humidity were taken during several
days in spring. Compared to static BIPV facades, electrical energy gains
between 28% and 50%, due to solar tracking, were measured. The exper-
iments demonstrate successful and robust functioning of the facade in
typical weather conditions for Zurich, Switzerland at outside temperatures
between 3◦ C and 20◦ C and various wind speeds up to 30 km/h. Relative
humidity does not have a major influence on the functioning of the soft
robotic actuators, and the glass transition temperature of neoprene rubber
is -50◦ C, which is low enough for use in most climates.
100 gain = 28% gain = 42% gain = 36% gain = 33% gain = 50%
Normalised PV Power Output [%]
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Wind [km/h] Sol. irr. [W/m 2 ]
1000 11.04.2016 13.04.2016 19.04.2016 20.04.2016 22.04.2016
500
40
20
30
Temp. [ºC]
100
20 Rel. Hum. [%] 80
10 60
0 40
10 12 14 16 18 10 12 14 16 18 10 15 20 10 15 20 10 15 20
Hour of day [h] Hour of day [h] Hour of day [h] Hour of day [h] Hour of day [h]
Figure 3.5: Envelope performance in real-weather conditions over several days.

Measurements were performed in natural wind conditions with a
maximum wind speed of 30 km/h. The graphs demonstrate success-
ful solar tracking performance of the soft robotic dynamic facade over
several days with a power gain between 28% and 50%.
3.6 energy benefits of the envelope as part of the building

service system
The envelope provides two energetically positive effects to the building:

on-site electricity generation and building demand reduction due to the
dynamic shading. The envelope control algorithm is programed to maximise
both at certain time steps, based on weather conditions, occupants’ needs,
the characteristics of the building supply systems, and physical properties

of the building elements. Simulations of the ASF mounted on a modern
office in Zurich indicate a net energy saving potential of 20-80% of the space
behind it compared to an equivalent static shading system with integrated
PVs [64]. Consequently, compared to current façade configurations without
integrated PVs and manually operated shading elements, even larger energy
savings are expected. The proposed envelope performs best in buildings that
have an even balance of heating and cooling demands, with low envelope
thermal transmittance (U-value or infiltration), such as modern offices, food
stores, and schools [67].
A current prototype consisting of 30 modules (Fig. 3.6a) was recently
constructed for the HiLo [20, 68] building at the NEST [69] at the Swiss
Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology - EMPA. Fig. 3.6a
shows the adaptive solar envelope in its temporary location at NEST. It will
be installed in front of a bedroom at HiLo, as soon as HiLo is built (Fig. 3.6b).
The façade in different operating states is shown in Extended Data Fig. 3.15
(see also Supplementary Video 1). The expected net-energy balance of one
room-envelope system over the course of a year can be represented using a
heat map (Fig. 3.6c). Blue colours indicate energy production, whereas red
colours indicate energy consumption. For most day-lit hours of the year,
the combination of adaptive shading and electricity generation can fulfil
the energy requirements of the room; There is energy surplus of 146 kWh,
i.e. 38% more energy is generated than what is required during day-lit
hours (Fig. 3.6d). If compared to the overall room energy demand, the
envelope offsets 48%. Based on measurements of the power consumption,
we estimated that the envelope consumes 3% or less of the electricity it
generates for its operation over the year (see Methods).
3.7 discussion
We have demonstrated a first building-scale, soft-robotic-driven, lightweight

and adaptive envelopes with integrated thin-film PV panels. The adaptive
envelope consists of modular elements driven by soft pneumatic actuators
and allow local solar energy generation, passive heating, reduction of cool-
ing demands, and daylighting to be manipulated at a higher spatio-temporal
resolution compared to previous building envelopes. When integrated as
the outer layer of a glazed façade, the adaptive solar envelope can offset
the entire energy demand of the space behind it during day-lit hours, while
using 3% or less of the energy generated for its operation.
3.7 discussion 39
Figure 3.6: Envelope energy balance and integration into a nearly-zero energy
building, HiLo, at Empa, Switzerland. a, A building-scale prototype
(4.0 x 2.5 m) of the dynamic solar facade driven by hybrid soft-
hard-material pneumatic actuators with 30 individually addressable
modules. b, Integration of the dynamic envelope within a nearly-zero
energy building HiLo at NEST at Empa research center in Dübendorf,
Switzerland. c, Carpet plot detailing the net energy balance of the
room behind the solar façade. The x-axis represents the months of
the year and the y-axis represents the net energy demand over hours
of an average day of the month. Solid lines indicate the sunrise and
sunset times. d, Room net energy balance during day-lit hours. e,
Building energy savings with the adaptive solar envelope installed.
The main enabling component of the adaptive solar envelope is a novel

two-axis hybrid soft-hard-material pneumatic actuator with adjustable
compliance. This hybrid actuator allows to actively control the actuator’s
mechanical impedance and achieve stabilisation in wind. Furthermore, due
to the inherent compliance of the soft actuator, the envelope is robust to
small disturbances and abrupt shocks, which should drastically reduce
the need for maintenance. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach,
which may serve as a foundation for a new generation of dynamic envelopes
with integrated elements that harvest or reflect solar energy. When equipped
with mirrors, the dynamic envelope can redistribute solar irradiation within
the built environment for optimal energy harvesting among neighbouring
buildings or to the sky, thus mitigating heat island effects. The dynamic
solar envelope bring possibility to manage energy and comfort on building
and urban scales, which could significantly reduce the energy consumption
of the built environment, towards near-zero energy buildings, and improve
both indoor and outdoor comfort.
3.8 methods
3.8.1 Fabrication of soft-material actuator
The soft-material actuator is produced as a unitary body in a quick fabrica-

tion process that consists of a single casting step. Our fabrication process
drastically reduces the fabrication time compared to the state-of-the-art
processes [23, 70, 71]. It exploits the hyperelasticity and high elongation-
before-break of rubbers. The moulded cavities, also called air chambers, are
easily formed by removing the solid forms out of the cured rubber. Using
this technique, precise geometries of internal air-cavities and outer actuator
shape can be obtained. The method allows fabrication using elastomers
with a wide range of viscosity, pot life, and Young’s modulus.
Given the geometry of the actuator (Extended Data Figure 3.1a and Fig.
3.1b), a mould consisting of several parts was developed to ensure flawless
unmoulding of the soft actuator. The mould was designed using computer-
aided design (CAD) software Rhinoceros 3D version 5. The mould consisted
of three pieces forming the outer shape of the actuator, three chamber-like
bullets, a rod for producing the vertical central opening, and a bottom plate
onto which all pieces of the mould were fixed. The mould was 3D printed
using a laser sinter system EOS P396, from Nylon plastic. The mould
was assembled on an aluminium plate containing appropriate holes. After
assembling the mould, elastomer rubber in liquid state is poured into the
mould. We used Elastosil®Vario, which is a translucent three-component
silicone rubber that allows one to freely select final hardness shore A index
in the range from 15 to 40. In working with this rubber, no additional
sealing components had to be applied to the mould to prevent leaking.
After pouring the rubber, it was degassed. To speed up the curing process,
the mould was left in the oven at 70◦ C for 45 min. After cooling down at
the room temperature for about 15 min, outer pieces of the mould were
disassembled. Compressed air was applied besides the bottom inlets of the
3.8 methods 41
chambers to release the rubber from the walls of the chamber-bullet. Finally,
chamber-bullets are pulled out easily and a unitary body soft actuator is
produced. The last step consisted of gluing the pneumatic fittings into the
three bottom inlets.
This fabrication process was further optimised for a large-scale produc-
tion in an industrial setting. The fabrication process remained similar in
its essence; However, several adaptations, in terms of mould shape, rubber
material, and mould material, were required. The actuator fabricated in the
industrial setting used Neoprene rubber (black colour) and it is shown in
Fig. 3.2a.
3.8.2 Finite-element analysis of soft actuator
A commercial finite-element analysis (FEA) software Abaqus CAE (SIM-

ULA™by Dassault Systémes®) was used to predict the kinematics and
stress-strain behaviour of the soft-material actuator [17, 72]. In particular,
the FEA allows one to identify the high stress regions of the soft actuator
during its expansion and to deduct what design changes one could make
in order to decrease the maximum stress. Through an iterative process of
efficient mapping of the high stress regions, it is possible to improve the
kinematics and stress-strain performance of the actuator. As the stress-strain
data of Neoprene CR 5215 (Shore A hardness 35), was not available, we used
the parameters of a rubber with similar characteristics, Elastosil®M4601
with Shore A hardness 28. This rubber has been already simulated in
Abaqus CAE as Yeoh hyper-elastic material model [17]. After the adop-
tion of the base units as (cm, g, s), the final simulation parameters were:
Damping: Alpha = 0.4, Beta = 0, Density = ”uniform”, Mass Density = 1.14,
Mechanical elasticity = ”hyper-elastic”, Material type = ”isotropic”, Strain
energy potential = ”Yeoh”, Input source = ”coefficients”, Strain energy
potential order = 3, C10 = 1100000, C20 = 2000, C30 = 0, D1=0, D2=0, D3=0.
The geometry of the actuator was imported into Abaqus CAE as a stl file,
previously created using Rhinoceros 3D, and it was meshed using 10-node
quadratic tetrahedral elements (Abaqus element type C3D10H). Further,
as several surfaces of the ribs of the actuator might get in contact during
inflation of the actuator, interaction property of the model was set to ”Im-
penetrability” and it was applied to all outer surfaces of the actuators that
could get in contact. Finally, the top plate of the soft actuator was rigidified
in order to represent the real-world case where a metal ring was mounted
on the top plate of the actuator (Fig. 2a). A uniform pressure of 1 bar
Figure 3.7: A quick-cast methodology for fabrication of soft actuators. a, Vertical

cross section of the two-axis three-chambers soft actuator with the
ribbed outer shape and internal cavities. b, Horizontal cross section of
the soft actuator. c, 3D model of the mould. d, Schematic representa-
tion of a mould with one bullet-chamber. e, Pouring rubber in liquid
state. f, Degassing and curing. g, Pulling out bullet-chamber to form
a cavity in the rubber. h, Single-body soft actuator with complex and
precise (< 1mm) geometry of the outer shape and cavity. i, Image of
the Nylon mould assembled on the aluminium plate. The front part
of the mould is missing in the image. j, Soft actuator with the mould
after disassembling the front part of the mould. k, Final unitary body
soft actuator made from Elastosil®Vario fabricated in a single casting
step. l,m, Images of the horizontal and vertical cross sections of the
soft actuator, respectively, showing the achieved complex wall shape.
(magnitude 825000 in corresponding Abaqus units) was applied in the form

of a ramp to the internal walls of the chambers. For this pressure, actuator
reached 20◦ , as it is shown in Fig. 3.2b and 3.2c. Neoprene rubber actuator
3.8 methods 43
reached this angle at about 1.4 bar during experiments. This difference
comes from the fact that we use the softer rubber, M4601, for simulation.
Therefore, we used FEA for relative comparison of different designs and,
consequently, for reducing the maximum stress in the material.
3.8.3 Pneumatic control system
The pneumatic control system consists of a real-time controller, an air

pressure source, electro-pneumatic valves for pressure distribution, and
orientation sensors mounted on façade modules (Fig. 3.3b). The central
part of the control system is National Instrument (NI) real-time control
and data acquisition programmable logic controller (PLC), Compact-RIO
9074. This PLC receives orientations of the envelope modules from inertial
measurement units (IMUs) (Fig. 3.1d, element (iii)). As an air pressure
source, air-compressor Vento Silent OM200 with a 6 l tank at 8 bar from
ABAC was used. The pressure output from the compressor is reduced to 2
bar and fed over a 24V 2/2-way electro-pneumatic (ON-OFF) valve MHA1-
M1H-2/2G-0,9-HC from Festo to a pressure distribution chamber MHA1-
PR10-3-M3, also from Festo. Using additional 2/2-way valve, as exhaust
valve, and a pressure sensor (HSC-DANN030PGAA5 from Honeywell),
basic pressure regulation unit is formed. Additional 2/2-way valves are then
attached to the pressure distribution chamber to supply the pressure to each
chamber of the soft actuator (Fig. 3.3b). The valves are connected to NI PLC
via C-series module 9476 with 32 relay outputs. The pressure sensor, giving
0-5V analogue signal, is connected to NI PLC via C-series 9381 module.
This finalises the pneumatic control system. A graphical user interface in
LabVIEW on a PC has been developed that allowed automatic orientation
control of individual elements and the whole facade, as well as performing
pressure-deflection, repeatability analysis, and other experiments reported
in the paper.
The introduced pneumatic control system is centralised and of reduced
complexity, as it has only one chamber for analogue pressure regulation.
This introduces certain limitations on the complexity of envelope motion; It
is possible to obtain parallel control of all façade modules in the same way,
buy opening all the valves connecting the same chamber in each actuator.
Also, it is possible to obtain a sequential control (one after the other) of
façade rows or sequential control of individual actuators. Depending on
the dynamics of the required envelope motion, the sequential control might
not be a limitation. We show that it is possible to sequentially update the
state of the entire envelope every 15 minutes, cycling between closed state
and tracking the sun (see Methods section on Orientation feedback control).
Due to the minimal number of the pneumatic components, this pneumatic
control system has also minimal costs. Its drawback is the number and
length of pneumatic lines, as each chamber needs to connect to the common
pressure distribution chamber.
In contrast to centralised pneumatic control system, decentralised ones
allow reduction of pneumatic lines and enable modularity of the system
(Extended Data Figure 3.8). The valves used for pressure distribution to
the soft actuator are now part of the façade element, located close to the
soft actuator. Such a distributed system requires, though, the development
of the distributed control electronics to enable the communication with
the centralised PLC [73]. The decentralised pneumatic control system of
minimal complexity is shown in Extended Data Figure 3.8a. This system can
achieve the same motion complexity as the above centralised control system.
However, the pressure distribution manifold has a minimum complexity
in this case, containing only two 2/2-way valves. Therefore, it can be
easily replicated to obtain another pressure regulation component in the
system and, in that way, enable parallel control of two groups of soft-
actuators. For the HiLo envelope (Fig. 3.6a), each row is connected to one
minimal-complexity pressure distribution manifold. This control system
presents a balance between the number of pneumatic components used
and achievable complexity of the envelope motion; In this case, each row
of the envelope can be independently controlled. For the maximal motion
performance, where each actuator is independently addressed at the same
time, a pressure distribution chamber needs to be integrated close to each
soft actuator, which requires at least five valves and a check-in valve, to
reduce the cross-talking between different pressure distribution manifolds
(Extended Data Fig. 3.8b).
3.8.4 Pressure-deflection measurements
Pressure-deflection measurement is a basic method for characterisation of

bending motion of the soft actuator. Due to the visco-elastic behaviour of
rubber, after inflation to a certain pressure, the chamber keeps expanding
for a certain time. Therefore, pressure-deflection measurements are typi-
cally performed in a quasi-static manner, i.e. the angle measurements are
recorded after the steady state angle is achieved. The pressure-deflection
experiment consisted of several cycles, where pressure was applied to a
3.8 methods 45
Figure 3.8: Different complexities of decentralised, modular pneumatic control

system. a, Decentralised pneumatic control system of minimal com-
plexity per envelope element, with a single common pressure regu-
lation chamber for all modules. b, Decentralised pneumatic control
system of maximal complexity per envelope element. Each envelope
element is equipped with a pressure regulation chamber. Therefore,
envelope elements can be independently control.
chamber in incremental steps (typically 10) up to the maximum pressure,

and then decreased in decremental steps. For each step, the pressure in the
chamber was regulated to the reference value using a developed bang-bang
controller with a predefined pressure band (0.03 bar). We have developed
an automatic testing procedure that allowed several parameters to be pro-
vided by the user: maximum pressure for each chamber, number of steps
to reach the maximum pressure, and duration of the step. The algorithm
automatically performs the experiments and records pressure, roll angle,
and pitch angle measurements at 20 Hz rate. Pressure deflection experiment
repeats two times for each chamber and each two chambers at a time.
After obtaining the roll and pitch measurements, quasi-static points were
extracted. For this purpose, an algorithm was developed in Matlab R2106b,
taking the average angles of the last 2s in each 20s step (Extended Data Fig.
3.9). After the quasi-static points were obtained, they could be plotted as
pressure-deflection curve (Fig. 3.2e).
Figure 3.9: Quasi-static pressure-deflection measurements and extraction of char-

acteristic steady-state points. Pressure increasing-decreasing cycles (a)
and corresponding angles (b) repeated two times for each of the three
chambers of the soft actuator. Extraction of steady-state points from
a single pressure increasing-decreasing cycle (c) and corresponding
angles (d). Data was taken as an average of the last 2s in the 20s step.
3.8.5 Repeatability of motion measurements
The repeatability of motion experiment was performed as 50 pressure-

deflection inflation-deflation cycles and steady-state values were extracted
as explained in the previous Methods section in laboratory conditions
without any external disturbances (Fig 3.2e). We only show measurements
of one chamber, as the results for the other two chambers are identical.
Important to notice is that after the second inflation-deflation cycle, the
pressure-deflection characteristic remains the same. A very small and slow
change happens over time. This could be caused by the difference of the
pressure in the compression tank, causing a small change of the air flow into
the soft actuator chamber, or due to the small temperature change in the
3.8 methods 47
laboratory. However, this change of pressure-deflection characteristics can

be neglected in real-world implementation, as the orientation error caused
by it will be detected by the IMU sensor and corrected by the orientation
feedback system.
3.8.6 Variable stiffness experiment
The goal of this experiment was to show how the stiffness of the hybrid
soft-hard-material actuator changes with changing the internal parameter
of the actuator, which is the pressure applied to all three chambers. The
experiment was performed in laboratory conditions and, therefore, isolated
from any unknown external disturbances, such as wind. The soft actuator
with the thin-film PV module was mounted on an elevated platform at 45◦
and different weights were hung on a string attached to the corner of the
panel. Several pressure points of interest were identified: 0, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2,
1.4, 1.6 bar. Pressures between 0 bar and 0.8 bar were not analysed as an
insignificant change of actuator stiffness occurred in this pressure range.
After applying a certain pressure level to all three chambers, the three valves
connecting the chambers to the common pressure distribution manifold
were closed to prevent the air escaping the chambers when external torque
was applied. Then, weights in increments of 86g were loaded onto the string
and the resulting angle deflections from the initial roll angle (45◦ ) were
recorded after reaching the steady-state, i.e. after the initial oscillations,
caused by loading the weight, had disappeared. At a certain weight, the
hybrid soft-hard actuator reached its maximum deflection limit, at about
37◦ . This limit is due to the mechanical design of the outer U-joint. The load
was then completely removed and the pressure in all three chambers was
increased to the next level, following the pressure sequence defined above.
The incremental loading of the weights was then repeated. The results are
shown in Fig. 3.2f.
3.8.7 Variable damping experiment
The variable damping experiment was performed using the same experi-
mental setup as for the variable stiffness experiment, but the experiment
was performed differently. The goal of the experiment was to show how
the damping of the actuator changes with changing the internal parameter
of the actuator, which is the pressure in all three chambers. To test the
damping, a preselected weight was hung on the rope, passing through the
metal ring at the base of the elevated platform on which the soft actuator
with the thin-film PV panel was mounted. The weight was preloaded on
the rope and instantly released using a quick-release pin. In this way, a step
response is generated. After performing some initial tests, the weight of
400g was selected as the weight where the U-joint reaches its mechanical
limit, while no pressure is applied to the chambers. As the first step of
the experiment, the pressure in all chambers was set to 0 bar. The three
valves supplying the pressure to the chambers were turned off in order to
block the air escaping the chambers when external load was applied. Then,
the weight was released and the roll angle was recorded at 20 Hz. The
oscillations were stabilised (2% steady state was achieved) after about 10s
and this time period was used as a recording window for the subsequent
experiments. The pressure in all three chambers was then increased to the
next value, following this sequence 0, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6 bar. The results of
this experiment are shown in Fig. 3.2g.
3.8.8 Cycles before break measurements
The cycles before break measurements were performed with the soft ac-
tuator with attached 40 x 40 cm CiGS thin-film PV panel including the
PV bracket, without PV cables passing through the middle of the actuator.
The actuator was tilted vertically at 45◦ , as it is mounted on the façade.
The experiments were performed in the laboratory conditions, without any
external disturbances or torque applied. The actuator was mounted such
that one chamber was at the bottom and this chamber was used to lift
the PV panel up from the default orientation. The actuator reached 30,000
cycles without breaking at the pressure of 1.6 bar 3.10. Assuming 4 cycles a
day in average, this corresponds to a life time of the actuator of 20 years.
At this pressure, the actuator lifts the panel up for 25◦ .
3.8.9 Orientation feedback control of a single facade module
The orientation control of the soft actuator is based on the measure-

ments of the roll and pitch angles using the IMU sensors InvenSense™
9-DOF MPU9250, mounted on a breakout board from Drotek Electronics
(www.drotek.fr). The IMU sensors are connected via I2C bus to a small
single-board computer Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. The IMU sensor data is
transferred to the Raspberry Pi and a fusion algorithm [74] is ran at 40 Hz,
updating the orientation angles. The orientation angles are sent as user
3.8 methods 49
Figure 3.10: Cycling tests of the corrugated soft actuator (Fig. 3.2a) made of
Neoprene rubber. Life time is calculated assuming 4 cycles/day.
datagram protocol (UDP) packets over the local area network (LAN) to NI
PLC. Orientation angles are used in the real-time control loop programmed
in LabVIEW Real-Time, running at 20 Hz.
The Zig-Zag control algorithm has been developed in order to map the
three available actuation directions (Fig. 3.2d), generated by the individual
inflation of the three chambers, to two angles, pitch and roll [75]. Starting
from the initial position in roll-pitch plane, the algorithm computes which
chambers and in which way they need to be inflated in order to reach the
reference orientation. If the current orientation lies on the main direction
of actuation of a certain chamber, only that chamber will be used to move
the panel. If the current orientation lies in between two main directions of
actuation, both that chambers will be used to rotate the module. Due to the
simplicity of the pneumatic control system, where only a single pressure
regulator exists for a single actuator, the two chambers are used sequentially,
one at a time. This generates zig-zag motion of the facade module, shown
in Extended Data Fig. 3.11a. If the soft actuator was supposed to follow the
reference trajectory consisting of straight lines between some points, for
example, as in the figure-of-eight (A-B-C-D-E-F-B) reference tracking, large
overshoots and drifting away from the straight trajectory occur. This over-
shoots could be reduced by introducing an upper limit on the maximum
difference between the pitch and roll angles and the straight line connecting
the initial and final orientation. When such a limit is introduced, the over-
shoot can be drastically reduced. Experimental results show that the control
algorithm was able to respect the upper bound of ±2.5◦ at almost all times
during the transition phase (Extended Data Fig. 3.11b). The small overshoots
of about 1◦ occur for a very short time due to the bang-bang control strategy
used. This could be avoided if more sophisticated control algorithms were
used, such as proportional integral derivative (PID) control or model predic-
tive control [76]. Due to the narrower angle band, the switching between two
chambers occurs more often, which extends the transition time from 160s to
250s for following the whole trajectory. As the solar tracking requires updat-
ing the orientation every 5-10 min for only few degrees, the time difference
introduced by setting the upper limit on the tracking precision is negligi-
ble. The algorithm is available in an open access GitHub repository [77]:
https://github.com/BratislavS/ZigZagControlWithUpperBound
3.8.10 Solar tracking experiments
Several solar tracking experiments were performed with the experimental

dynamic envelope prototype at the roof of HPZ building at ETH Zurich
Hönggerberg Campus (Extended Data Fig. 3.13). Thin-film PV panels from
Flisom AG were laminated on 1 mm aluminium sheets of 40 x 40 cm.
Due to the manufacturing process at Flisom AG in early 2016, it was
possible to laminate thin-film PV modules of 32 x 40 cm, which resulted
in approximately 80% coverage of the envelope module with the active
PV layer. Electrical PV power output of the envelope was measured at the
maximum power point using PVPM 2510C from Photovoltaik Engineering.
PV modules in each row were connected in series and, then, rows were
connected in parallel.
The solar tracking algorithm for multiple modules was based on the
zig-zag orientation feedback control, described in the previous Methods
section. This control algorithm was applied in a sequential manner to
control the entire envelope; This means, a module after module was moved
from the initial orientation to the reference orientation. Two solar tracking
3.8 methods 51
Figure 3.11: Orientation feedback control of the soft actuator performing the
figure-of-eight reference tracking. a, Roll-pitch and time diagrams
of the zig-zag reference tracking without an upper bound on the
maximum distance from the reference orientation. b, Roll-pitch
and time diagrams of the zig-zag reference tracking with an upper
bound on the maximum distance from the reference orientation.
Introducing the upper bound on the maximum distance from the
reference orientation reduces the overshooting.
experiment were performed using the HPZ envelope: with half of the
envelope (Ext. Data Fig. 3.12a) and the entire envelope (Ext. Data Fig.
3.12b). In the first case, the zig-zag orientation control algorithm without an
upper bound on angle tracking difference was used, resulting in overshoots
during transitions. In the second case, the zig-zag orientation feedback
control with the upper bound on angle difference during tracking was used,
Figure 3.12: Sequential control of envelope elements. a, Sequential control of the

envelope with 8 modules cycling between two states: parallel to the
wall and solar tracking. b, A single transition step of the sequential
control of the envelope with 16 modules. Both experiments were
performed using the HPZ envelope.
reducing drastically overshoots. Comparison of PV power outputs of the

entire envelope in three different states (solar tracking, parallel to the wall,
and tilted at 45◦ ) are shown in Extended Data Fig. 3.13b, together with
characteristic envelope orientations in Extended Data Fig. 3.13c.
3.8.11 Electricity consumption measurements of the pneumatic control system
The electricity consumption of the pneumatic control system of the ex-

perimental dynamic envelope at HPZ building (Extended Data Fig. 3.14)
was measured during a solar tracking experiment using smart AC meter
SINEAX AM1000 from Camillie Bauer AG. Note that during this exper-
iment the system was just tracking the sun, without going to the other
states of the envelope, as defined in the Methods section on Solar tracking.
Also, notice that only the lower half of the HPZ envelope (8 modules)
was used in this experiment. The orientation update cycle was 15 min. We
measured the aggregated AC power consumption of all the components
forming the pneumatic control system, which are the air-compressor Vento
Silent OM200 from ABAC with the rated power of 750 W, 24V DC 2-2/way
valves from FESTO with rated power of 1 W, NI cRIO 9074 PLC with the
3.8 methods 53
Figure 3.13: Solar tracking experiment with the dynamic envelope with 16 mod-
ules. The envelope is mounted on the roof of HPZ building at ETH
Zurich, Switzerland. a, Measurements of the global solar irradia-
tion on a horizontal surface. b, Comparison of PV power output of
the envelope in three states: two-axis solar tracking, static facade
parallel to the wall, and static facade tilted at 45◦ . The envelope
cycles through the three states every 30 min (10 min per state). c,
Characteristic moments of envelope orientation during the solar
tracking experiment.
stand-by power consumption of 12 W, and Raspberry Pi B+ with the power

consumption of 2 W, to which IMU sensors were connected.
There are three characteristic components of the AC consumption graph
related to the three main components of the pneumatic control system (Ex-
tended Data Fig. 3.14a). There is a constant, base, low power consumption,
coming from the control electronics and pneumatic valves, and short peaks
of high power consumption from the air-compressor. There is a constant
power consumption of the control electronics, NI PLC and Raspberry Pi,
of about 14.3 W. The variable low power consumption from the pneumatic
valves adds to the power consumption of the electronics as a variable part
with the maximum at 17.5 W. The air compressor generates peaks of about
750 W for about 45s, when it refills the tank from 6 to 8 bar. One solar
tracking transition step is shown in zoomed-in graphs (Extended Data Fig.
3.14e-h). The transition step lasted 65s and valves used 35 mWh. These
values are used to estimate the yearly energy consumption of the experi-
mental control setup (Extended Data Table 1). As indicated in the table, the
majority of the total power consumption (34.4W) of the pneumatic control
system is used by the control electronics (22.5W, or 65%). This is due to
the fact that the control electronics was not selected with intention of low
power consumption and final implementation of the control system, but
rather for quick development of the control system and control software
implementation.
Therefore, there is a huge potential to design much more efficient pneu-
matic control system with off-the-shelf components with intention for a
final product design. A control electronics board could be developed utilis-
ing ultra-low-power microcontroller, such as one from Texas Instruments
MSP430™ family. For example, MSP430FR59941 requires 0.4 mW in normal
regime, 0.1 mW in stand-by with very fast wakeup time of 7 µs, and it has
enough computational power and number of inputs and outputs to control
the envelope. Also, the envelope control algorithms are not computationally
intensive and run at 5 Hz. This means that the power consumption of the
control electronics could be reduced to around 1% of the current power con-
sumption; however, due to additional Ethernet communication electronics
for monitoring of the envelope, we assumed that the power consumption of
the control system is reduced to 10% of the values for experimental setup
at HPZ roof.
Further, it was found that only 60% of the power consumed by the
ABAC air-compressor was used in the pneumatic system; other 40% was
wasted due to the leakage in the compressor. This stand-by leakage of the
compressor could be avoided to a large part by using an air-compressor
with the sealing of a higher quality. Further, more energetically efficient
electro-pneumatic valves are available on the market from SMC Pneumatics
S070 series with only 0.1 W power consumption, instead of the current 1
W of Festo MHA1 series. In order to obtain the final energy balance of the
3.8 methods 55
envelope, we compare the electrical energy that the envelope can generate
over the year with the electrical energy it uses for its operation.
The generated electrical energy is calculated based on the solar irradi-
ation data for south oriented façade surface in Zurich [78]. Based on the
above measurements, the self-consumption of the experimental control
setup was estimated at 30%. If the control setup is designed for low-power
consumption using only off-the-shelf components as explained above, the
energy consumption of the pneumatic control system is estimated at 3%
or less (see Extended Data Table 1). This number further depends on the
climate region; in climates with more solar irradiation, the self-consumption
of the envelope will be lower than 3%, due to higher solar irradiation per
m2. Also, if thin-film PV cells with the efficiency higher than 10% are used,
this will further reduce the self-power consumption below 3%.
Figure 3.14: Electricity consumption measurements of the pneumatic control

system during solar tracking experiment. For this experiment, lower
half (8 modules) of the HPZ envelope was used. a, Aggregated
power consumption of the pneumatic control system consisting of
the control electronics (A), air compressor (B), and electro-pneumatic
valves (C). b, Zoomed in base power consumption from the elec-
tronics and variable power consumption from the valves. c,d, Roll
and pitch angles during the solar tracking experiment. e-h, Zoomed
in pressure in the pressure distribution chamber (e), aggregated
power consumption (f), roll (g) and pitch (h) angles during one solar
tracking step.
3.8 methods 57
Figure 3.15: Soft robotic driven dynamic envelope at HiLo. a, Perspective view
on the dynamic solar envelope. The top three rows are closed, while
the bottom three rows are open. b, Front view on the dynamic solar
envelope with the top rows open.
Figure 3.16: Initial prototype of the Reflective Dynamic Solar Envelope. Bot-
tom three rows of the HPZ dynamic envelope were equipped with
mirrors, while the top row is equipped with the CIGS PV modules.
3.8 methods 59
Figure 3.17: Energy balance of the soft-robotics-driven dynamic building

envelope: electricity generation vs. self-consumption. Calculations
are for the HiLo envelope with 30 elements. Regarding the energy
consumption, it is assumed that the envelope is active only during
day-lit hours; there are 4,080 day-lit hours in Zurich in a year.
§
Geographical Assessment of Solar Resource and Performance of Photovoltaic
Technology [78]
†
Experimental setup at HPZ roof. The consumption values are measured (see
Extended Data Figure 3.14) and then scaled up to represent values for a façade with
30 modules
‡
Calculations with respect to (A) in the Table
Performing minimisation of the building net energy consumption (see Section on
Energy benefits of the envelope as part of the building service system.)
¶
Page 9, Compressed Air Evaluation Protocol, National Renewable Energy
Laboratory [79].
Q U I C K - C A S T : A M E T H O D F O R FA S T A N D P R E C I S E
4
SCALABLE PRODUCTION OF FLUID-DRIVEN
E L A S T O M E R I C S O F T A C T U AT O R S
Fluid-driven elastomeric actuators (FEAs) are among the most popular

actuators in the emerging field of soft robotics. Intrinsically compliant, with
continuum of motion, large strokes, little friction, and high power-to-weight
ratio, they are very similar to biological muscles, and have enabled new
applications in automation, architecture, medicine, and human-robot inter-
action. To foster future applications of FEAs, in this paper we present a new
manufacturing method for fast and precise scalable production of complex
FEAs of high quality (leak-free, single-body form, with <0.2 mm precision).
The method is based on 3d moulding and supports elastomers with a wide
range of viscosity, pot life, and Young’s modulus. We developed this process
for two different settings: one in laboratory conditions for fast prototyping
with 3d printed moulds and using multi-component liquid elastomers, and
the other process in an industrial setting with 3d moulds micromachined
in metal and applying compression moulding. We demonstrate these meth-
ods in fabrication of up to several tens of two-axis, three-chambered soft
actuators, with two types of chamber walls - cylindrical and corrugated.
The actuators are then applied as motion drivers in kinetic photovoltaic
building envelopes.
Svetozarevic, B., Begle, M., Caranovic, S., Nagy, Z., & Schlueter, Quick-cast: A method for fast
and precise scalable production of fluid-driven elastomeric soft actuators. Extreme Mechanics
Letters. In Review (2018)
61
62 quick-cast manufacturing method
4.1 introduction
Soft robotics is a rapidly growing field offering novel actuators [80], end ef-
fectors [24], skins [9], and even entire robots [6] made of compliant material.
They carry several important advantages compared to classical rigid-bodied
robots, such as intrinsic compliance, large power-to-weight ratio, low fric-
tion, simpler control, and cheaper fabrication, and have enabled solutions
to challenging problems in automation (e.g. universal grasping [7]), archi-
tecture (e.g. adaptive solar façade [81]), medicine (e.g. minimally invasive
surgery [52]), and human-robot interaction (e.g. safe continuum manip-
ulation [82]). As contrary to rigid-bodied robots, where components are
selected from the standard set of components (e.g. electromotor, gearbox,
spring) and designs follow rigid-body kinematics principles (rigid links
connected by discrete joints), soft robotics offers much more design free-
dom, with a plethora of soft materials available (e.g. intrinsically compliant
– elastomers, and extrinsically compliant, such as wires of shape mem-
ory alloy [83], thermoplastics [84], and jamming particles [7]), a range
of actuation principles (fluidic-, thermal-, humidity-, pH-, magnetic-, and
electric-driven), and freedom in defining components shape, structure, and
working principle. Consequently, the main challenge in working with soft
components is in their design and manufacturing. Compared to design,
manufacturing techniques are directly linked to the performance of the
actuators, which often brought major advances in the past [15, 23, 85, 86].
Among soft actuators, one of most popular types are fluid-driven elas-
tomeric actuators (FEAs). These actuators contain fluidic pathways within
their soft bodies. When they are filled up with pressurised fluid (gas or
liquid), the surrounding elastic material expands, leading to a change of the
outer shape of the actuator. Depending on the geometry of fluidic pathways
and shape of the actuator, as well as on the pressurisation method (inflation
or deflation), different output motion paths can be obtained, such as expan-
sion, contraction, bending, or twisting [18]. Besides motion diversity, FEAs
exhibit advanced actuation features, similar to those of biological muscles,
such as continuum of motion, high power-to-weight ratio, large strokes,
and little friction. Also, due to use of elastomers, FEAs are intrinsically
compliant and can passively mitigate external disturbances (acting as a
spring-damper system), allowing for reduction of control complexity and
safe interaction with the environment and humans. For existing reviews of
FEAs, please see [11, 85].
4.1 introduction 63
Even though several methods for manufacturing of FEAs exists, they

are of limited suitability for scalable production due to either high process
complexity, long total fabrication time, difficulties in achieving leak-free
actuators, or limited support for different types of elastomers. To strengthen
future applications of soft robotics (e.g. soft-robotic driven adaptive solar
facades [87]), a manufacturing method suitable for scalable production of
FEAs is necessary.
In this paper we present a new manufacturing method for soft actuators
that is suitable for fast and precise scalable production of complex FEAs of
high quality (leak-free, single-body, with <1 mm precision). This method
is based on 3d moulding, where outer walls of an FEA and internal voids
(fluidic pathways) are formed in a single casting process. The outer mould
consists of several parts that can be easily disassembled, while internal
voids are created by pulling out the three internal mould parts. In that, the
elasticity of elastomers enables pulling out of the mould parts.
The advantages of this method are: (i) speed – a single casting method
with the total production time of approximately one hour per actuator,
(ii) quality of the actuators – single-body (no gluing or bonding required),
leak-free, and precise (<0.2 mm) actuators, and (iii) a wide range of sup-
ported elastomers in terms of viscosity, pot life, and Youngs’ modulus.
We call the method shortly Quick-cast. We developed this process for two
different settings: one for fast prototyping in laboratory conditions with 3d
printed moulds and using multi-component pourable elastomers, and the
other process in an industrial setting with 3d moulds micromachined in
metal and using compression moulding. We demonstrate these methods in
fabrication of up to several tens of two-axis, three-chambered FEAs, with
two types of chamber walls – cylindrical and corrugated. We tested them in
terms of pressure-deflection characteristics and motion repeatability. The
actuators are then used as motion drivers in two real-world building-scale
prototypes of kinetic photovoltaic envelopes, with 50 modules at ETH
Zurich Hoengerberg Campus [81] (Fig. 4.1) and with 30 modules at EMPA,
Duebendorf [87], both in Switzerland. These novel dynamic building en-
velopes are very lightweight, resilient to weather condition, robust to wind
loads, with low self-power consumption, and can improve a building’s net
energy demand through adaptive shading and electricity generation [64, 87].
Besides the three-chambered actuator design reported here, the Quick-cast
method is suitable for other single or multi-chamber designs.
4.2 methods and materials
4.2.1 Actuator design
We developed the Quick-cast manufacturing method from the need to fabri-

cate a large number (>100) of two-axis three-chambered single-body FEAs,
called SoRo-Tracks (Fig. 4.1h) [75], in order to apply them as motion drivers
in adaptive photovoltaic façades [81, 87]. In terms of motion capabilities,
we decided for two-axis actuation instead of single-axis. Two-axis allow for
both vertical (altitude angle) and horizontal positioning (azimuth angle) of
façade elements, which increases the yearly PV energy output by 10-15%
compared to single-axis trackers [88]. Furthermore, the possibility to move
each of the façade elements in two axes provides architects with the maxi-
mum design freedom when it comes to aesthetic expressions. In terms of
actuator design requirements, we wanted to reduce its complexity as much
as possible, as well as to improve its visual appearance and allow for easier
cleaning by having a single-body actuator, instead of, for example, multiple
single-axis soft actuators.
We considered two geometries of internal voids: cylindrical and corru-
gated. The cylindrical is simpler in terms of design complexity and it was
the first intuitive design to test the method. The corrugated design has
more complex geometry, offers much more design parameters (e.g. ribs
geometry, walls thicknesses), and therefore requires more effort to obtain a
well performing actuator. In the design of bending actuators, it is important
to maximise the forces acting on bottom and top discs of the actuator and
minimise the radial expansion of rubber. This would maximise the bending
moment of the actuator. Also, it is preferable that the actuator stays in
the linear region of rubber elasticity during inflation as then it allows for
implementation of open-loop (sensorless) control, instead of sensor-based
closed loop control. In our case, the ribs are very precisely designed in 3d
in such a way that the inner ribs have thinner walls than the outer ones, and
therefore they unfold to the outside, increasing the distance between the
outer ribs. The outer ribs have a rather high thickness preventing overall
radial expansion of the chamber, and therefore maximising the bending
moment. In this way, we avoid large expansions of the rubber and the
corrugated SoRo-Track actuator functions in the linear region (Fig. 4.1g).
4.2 methods and materials 65
4.2.2 State-of-the-art manufacturing methods
We defined the following process properties as important for the scalable

production in an industrial setting: (i) achieving leak-free actuators, (ii)
number of manufacturing steps, (iii) steps complexity, (iv) required gluing /
bonding step, (v) total fabrication time, (vi) precision, (vii) supporting wide
range of elastomers, and (ix) possibility to base it on an already established
industrial process. In the following text we review the state-of-the-art
methods in terms of these properties.
At macro scale (cm to m), moulding and direct 3d printing of soft mate-
rials are the most popular manufacturing techniques, due to the fact that
elastomers can be processed as liquids – multi-component elastomers that
harden over time, with the pot life from min to hours. A typical moulding
technique is a 2d moulding process (a layup process) where a part of the
actuator containing the fluid pathways is moulded first, and then it is glued
to another, stiffer elastomer or fabric, forming networks of pneumatic chan-
nels, PneuNets [23]. This method is very popular in the community, due to
the availability of 3d printers for fabrication of plastic moulds (ABS, PLA,
etc). The drawback of this process is in the required gluing or bonding of
separately produced elastomer pieces, which might result in weak spots
prone to delamination and leaking at higher pressures. Also, the process
consists of several steps, requiring several hours for fabrication of a single
actuator.
To overcome the drawbacks of the 2d moulding process, a 3d moulding
technique using wax cores has been proposed [86]. In this process, first, the
wax cores are casted, and then they are used in the second casting step for
making fluidic pathways. This process enables fabrication of very complex
fluidic pathways in a single-body actuator form (avoiding gluing), with
uniform material properties across the actuator. This process is, however,
more time consuming than 2d moulding, as it consists of two castings and,
in addition, curing (cross-linking of elastomer chains) cannot be made faster
by heating up the mould, due to the low melting point of the beeswax of
62-64◦ C. Also, the wax needs to be removed and cleaned from the fluidic
pathways afterwards, which is an additional step.
Besides moulding techniques, direct 3d printing of soft materials of-
fers advanced possibilities, such as varying elastomer parameters across
the actuator volume and achieving higher geometrical complexity [89–91]
. However, due to difficulties in obtaining cross-links between polymer
chains during the layering process, obtaining leak-tight actuators is of-
ten challenging. There are multiple parameters of the 3d printing process

(e.g. layer height, nozzle size, and extrusion temperature) that need to be
properly tuned for each material, and the 3d printed actuators need to be
post-processed to achieve polymer cross-linking [92]. Moreover, current
soft-material 3d printing techniques have lower precision than moulding
processes and fabrication time per single actuator is much longer. In that,
firm positioning of the individual balloons is required, which typically
needs additional engineering effort.
In terms of manufacturing methods suitable for scalable production,
only one method has been proposed in the literature to the best of our
knowledge. This process is based on a standard industrial process, rotational
casting, where uncured elastomer is casted as a hollow structure in a closed
mould [70]. The limitation of this process is that it supports elastomers with
limited range of viscosity, pot life, and Youngs’ modulus (uncured elastomer
needs to be of a certain viscosity in order to be processed in rotational
casting). Also, the precision of internal voids depends on how good the
models of the rotational casting process and elastomer curing process are,
which might be additional limiting factor for the process applicability, in
particular for achieving complex and precise fluid pathways. Furthermore,
it is a multi-step process, where multiple individual balloons (chambers)
obtained in the rotational casting step are then used to produce the final
actuator by casting the surrounding elastomer body. In that, firm positioning
of the individual balloons is required, which typically needs additional
engineering effort.
4.2.3 Quick-cast manufacturing method in laboratory conditions
We aimed for developing a manufacturing method based on 3d printed

moulds as it allows for quick prototyping and testing of soft actuators.
After the soft actuator and its mould was modelled in Rhinoceros®(Step A),
it was 3d printed from Nylon on a laser sintering system EOS P396 (Step
B). The details of the mould are presented in Fig. 4.7. After assembling
the mould, a multi-component liquid elastomer ELASTOSIL®VARIO from
Wacker Chemie AG is poured (step 1). VARIO is a two-component silicone
rubber, with Shore A hardness 15 and 40, respectively, which allow for
achieving any Shore A hardness between 15 and 40. The influence of the
mixing ratio on rubber parameters (tensile strength, elongation at break,
and tear strength) are given in Fig. 4.6. We mixed the two elastomers in a
3:1 ratio and added 15% of the catalyst (resulting Shore A index 30). After
4.2 methods and materials 67
Figure 4.1: Quick-cast method applied to fabrication of FEAs with cylindrical

(a) and corrugated (b) walls. See-through images of cylindrical (c)
and corrugated (d) two-axis, three-chambered SoRo-Track actuators
made of semi-translucent ELASTOSIL®VARIO from Wacker Chemie
AG. Corrugated SoRo-Tracks made of (e) ELASTOSIL®VARIO in
laboratory conditions with 3d printed moulds. (f) Corrugated SoRo-
Track industrially manufactured from Neoprene rubber. (g) Pressure-
deflection characteristics of cylindrical and corrugated SoRo-Tracks.
(h) A single module of Adaptive Solar Façade driven by SoRo-Track.
Outside view (i) and view from inside (j) of Adaptive Solar Façade
with 50 cylindrical SoRo-Tracks at ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg Campus,
Switzerland.
pouring, the mixture was degassed to remove the trapped air-bubbles (Step
2). Then, the curing of elastomer was done in an oven at 75◦ C for about
20 min (Step 3). This is much faster than curing at the room temperature,
Figure 4.2: Quick-cast manufacturing method for fast prototyping of FEAs in

laboratory conditions with 3d printed moulds and using multi-
component liquid elastomers.
which takes several hours. Finally, the mould is disassembled in two steps
(Step 4). First, the two parts forming the outer shape of the actuator are
taken apart. Second, the inner cores are pulled out of the soft actuator (Fig.
4.8 and Fig. 4.10). Pulling out of the hard cores is possible due to the large
elongation at break of elastomers (in this case it is around 500%; may be up
to 1000%, e.g. of Ecoflex™00-50 from Smooth-On, Inc.). To allow for easer
pulling out of the inner cores, we were slightly inflating the chambers. The
total fabrication time of a single actuator, including the mould assembling,
takes approximately one hour. To produce the next actuator, one needs to
repeat steps 1 to 4. Obtained actuators may be then tested for performance
(Step C) and the information fed back to the modelling software to inform
the change of the design. The images of this manufacturing process for
cylindrical SoRo-Track and using VARIO are given in Fig. 4.8. Also, we
show the manufacturing of the same actuator with ELASTOSIL©M4601
(Fig. 4.9).
4.3 results and discussion 69
4.2.4 Quick-cast manufacturing method in industry
The Quick-cast method in laboratory conditions was adapted to industrial

setting, in order to obtain the industry-quality actuators, with repeatable
characteristics over a large number of samples. We found compression
moulding to be a suitable process, which allows for both multi-component
elastomers (e.g. ELASTOSIL®M4601 and ELASTOSIL®VARIO 15/40) and
rubbers (e.g. Neoprene and EPDM) to be used. We only tested this method
with rubbers. Because of that, the mould is heated up to 350◦ C and the
uncured rubber is injected under pressure into the metal mould (Step 1).
After curing at this elevated temperature for 20 minutes (Step 2), the mould
is cooled down and taken apart (Step 3). The disassembling of the mould
happens in the same way as in the process in laboratory conditions. First,
the outer moulds are separated, and then the inner cores are pulled out. As
Neoprene has higher hardness (Shore A 35) compared to the hardness of the
ELASTOSIL®VARIO mixture (Shore A 30) that we used in the laboratory
conditions, it was much harder to remove the cores from the corrugated
actuator. Therefore, we decided to take them out on the other side through
a slightly larger opening (radius 4 mm on the top, rather than 1.75 mm on
the bottom), and then those small holes were closed at the end by gluing
conical plugs. The total production time for one actuator is about 1 hour.
The images of the industrial process are shown in Fig. 4.10.
4.3 results and discussion
We tested two batches of actuators with 10 actuators in each batch. The

actuators are randomly selected from larger batches of about 50 actuators.
The first batch consists of cylindrical SoRo-Track actuators made in labora-
tory from ELASTOSIL®VARIO 15/40 with the mixture ration 3:1 (resulting
hardness Shore A 30). The second batch consists of corrugated actuators
manufactured under industrial conditions from Neoprene rubber (hardness
Shore A 35). Our goal with these tests is to compare the actuators within
each batch among each other to see what degree of performance similarity
can be achieved. All the tests were done using the pneumatic control system
and inertial measurement unit as orientation sensor, as described in [75].
1 Injection
CNC - milling of the moulding
metal mould for Quick-casting ~15 min
2
rubber Unmolding
(Neoprene) Elastic material allows
production time: ~1 hour to pull out the centercore
~10 min
two-axis
soft (FEA) actuator
3
Curing at an
elevated temperature
~20 min
Figure 4.3: Quick-cast manufacturing method for scalable production of FEAs in

industrial setting
4.3.1 Pressure-deflection characterisation
The pressure-deflection behaviour of cylindrical actuators manufactured in

laboratory conditions is shown in Fig. 4.4a and 4.4b, for roll and pitch angles,
respectively. Pressure-deflection curves for each of the three chambers
are presented. The measurements are done with the SoRo-Track actuator
mounted at 45◦ roll (vertical angle), resembling the mounting angle on
the façade. In that case, one chamber is below the other two chambers.
Therefore, in Fig. 4.4a we can see that inflation of chamber 1 moves the
panel vertically up, thus increasing the roll angle, while the inflations of
chambers 2 and 3 cause a bending of the panel towards ground, thus
decreasing the roll angle. In azimuth angle (pitch angle), the inflation of
chamber 2 decreases the pitch angle, the inflation of chamber 3 increases the
pitch angle, while chamber 1 does not have any influence on the pitch angle.
This can be also seen on roll-pitch graph shown in Fig. 4.4c, where the main
directions of actuation nicely follow the indicated 120◦ angle difference.
Regarding the differences among the actuators within the same batch, we
can see that there is a significant spread in the obtained pressure- deflection
curves (22%-26% difference in pressure change for 7%-23% in achieved an-
gles). One reason for this is in manual preparation of ELASTOSIL®VARIO
4.3 results and discussion 71
15/40 mixture for each actuator before pouring. The second reason is in the
insufficient precision of the 3d printed nylon mould, hence small offsets in
the fixation of the inner cores during mould assembly, as well as a slight
bending of the metal rods on which these cores are mounted. These metal
rods are rather thin (3 mm stainless steel rod) and they bend during the
manual pulling out of the inner cores (Fig. 4.8).
The pressure-deflection curves for corrugated SoRo-Track actuators made
from Neoprene rubber and manufactured industrially are shown in Fig.
4.4e-g. We can see that the pressure-deflection curves overlap for all 10
of tested actuators is very good (1% in pressure change for 12%-16% in
achieved angles). As the mould is micromachined from stainless steel, there
are no geometrical differences between these actuators. The only source of
uncertainty is in the preparation of the rubber mix, which, due to the early
development phase of establishing of this process, is still done manually
for each actuator separately. However, the absolute angle error is about +/-
3◦ , which is acceptable for controlling the system in feed-forward mode,
i.e. only using pre-calculated control inputs, without the need for feedback
signals from sensors, thus simplifying the control and reducing the actuator
implementation costs.
4.3.2 Repeatability of motion
One of the actuators from each batch is randomly chosen for testing the
repeatability of motion (Fig. 4.4d and Fig. 4.4h). Chamber 1 was inflated
and then deflated 50 times. Both actuators show very good repeatability
over number of cycles.
4.3.3 Comparison with state-of-the-art methods
We tested the manufacturing of SoRo-Track actuator using some the state-

of-the-art methods (PneuNets [23], Wax-cores [86], and Rotation casting [70].
We did not have access to any of the direct 3d printing of soft materials
techniques [89–91]. It turned out that manufacturing of SoRo-Track was
challenging for some of the above methods, due to its specific shape, where
the maximum radius of fluidic pathways is several times (5 times) larger
than the radius of the fluidic pathway entrance. The actuators fabricated
using PneuNets approach [23] started to delaminate after a certain time. We
did not have major difficulties with Wax-cores [86], but due to the softness of
wax and very complex 3d geometry of SoRo-Track, we were not always sure
Figure 4.4: Pressure-deflection (a-c and e-g) and repeatability characterisation

(d and h) of cylindrical two-axis three-chamberd (SoRo-Track) actu-
ator made of ELASTOSIL®VARIO in laboratory conditions and of
corrugated actuator made of Neoprene made in industrial conditions.
that all parts of the wax cores stayed intact during demoulding them and
afterwards while pouring of elastomers over them in the main fabrication
step. In terms of using the rotational casting method [70], we could not
tune it for ELASTOSIL®M4601 to obtain the precise geometry of the inner
cores. However, this could have been due to our lack of expertise in this
method. The total time for manufacturing of a single SoRo-Track actuator
4.4 conclusions 73
using the above methods was between 6h to 10h, after basic preparations
were done. We are confident in these numbers, as all of the above methods
require multiple steps (between 3 and 4).
Based on our review of the state-of-the-art methods provided in Section
4.2.2 and based on the results of our Quick-cast method, we provide the
summary of the comparison in Table 1. With the table fields shaded in
grey we emphasize which methods show the best performance for each
feature analysed. Overall, our method shows comparable or advanced
performance across all features besides one (geometrical complexity of
fluidic pathways), where it shows moderate performance. Our method
shows advance performance in terms of number of steps (reduction to a
single step) and total fabrication time (reduction from one working day to
one hour).
In terms of the geometrical complexity of fluidic pathways, our process
has certain limitations defined by the materials properties and certain
geometrical parameters of fluidic pathways. The difference between the
radius of the entrance of the fluidic pathways and the maximum radius of
the fluidic pathways at any point, should not be larger than the elongation at
break of a soft material. Given that the elongation at break of soft materials
is in the range of 100% to 1000%, this may not be a critical limitation. The
elongation at break is inversely correlated with the elastomer hardness. This
means that for stronger soft actuators (with higher elastomer hardness), the
elongation at break is getting smaller. A designer of a soft actuator would
need to check if the design satisfies this limitation before fabricating the
actuator.
4.4 conclusions
In summary, we demonstrated a new manufacturing method for scalable

production of complex, industrial grade FEAs. Compared to the state-of-
the-art methods, Quick-cast offers advantages in terms of: (i) speed (total
fabrication time of one hour, compared to typical fabrication time of one
working day, 8h, of other methods), (ii) quality of the actuator (leak-free,
single-body, with < 1 mm precision), and (iii) the range of supported elas-
tomers in terms of viscosity, pot life, and Young’s modulus. We developed
this process for two different settings: for laboratory conditions with 3d
printing moulds for fast prototyping and using multi-component rubbers,
and for industrial setting with moulds micromachined in metal and using
compression moulding. We showed the application of those methods in
Figure 4.5: Comparison of Quick-cast manufacturing method with state-of-the-

art methods. The fields highlighted in grey indicate the best perform-
ing method for that feature.
the scalable manufacturing of the two-axis, three-chamber FEA actuator

SoRo-Track. These actuators are then applied as motion drivers in adaptive
solar building facades. We tested two batches of two types of actuators, with
cylindrical and corrugated chamber walls, in terms of pressure-deflection
and repeatability of motion. The industrial process showed advantages
over the laboratory process in terms of repeatable performance over a large
number of samples – the pressure-deflection curves overlap very well for
10 actuators, randomly selected from a batch of more than 50.
The only potential limitation of our approach is in the maximal achievable
geometrical complexity of the fluidic pathways. The difference between the
radius of the entrance of the fluidic pathways and the maximum radius of
the fluidic pathways at any point, should not be larger than the elongation
at break of a soft material. The elongation at break is inversely correlated
with the elastomer hardness, which means that for a stronger soft actuator
(with higher elastomer hardness), the elongation at break is smaller. Given
4.5 acknowledgements 75
that the elongation at break of soft materials is in the range of 100% to

1000%, this may not be a critical limitation.
In the paper we demonstrate the scalable production of two-axis three-
chambered FEA called SoRo-Track. The short manufacturing time of the
Quick-cast method here allowed for rapid scalable manufacturing of large
number (>100) of these actuators and has enabled the construction of
several real-world building-scale prototypes of Adaptive Solar Façades [81,
87]. The Quick-cast, however, is also suitable for other single or multi-
chamber designs. The method is also suitable for larger scale actuators. We
believe, that this novel manufacturing method for fast and precise scalable
production of complex, high quality FEAs will foster and enable novel
application of soft robotics in the future.
4.5 acknowledgements
We acknowledge support from the Building Technologies Accelerator pro-

gram of Climate-KIC. We acknowledge the support from our industrial
partner Maagtechnic AG, Duebendorf, Switzerland, on establishing the
industrial manufacturing process at their facilities.
4.6 appendix a. supplementary data
Figure 4.6: ELASTOSIL®VARIO is a two-component silicone rubber with vari-

able Shoare A hardness. Influence of blending ratio of VARIO 15 :
VARIO 40 on rubber parameters.
4.6 appendix a. supplementary data 77
Figure 4.7: Exploded view of the nylon mould for the two-axis three-chambered
soft actuators (SoRo-Track) with cylindrical walls. For corrugated
walls, the outer moulds are the same, but the “bullets” forming the
internal voids are different (see Fig. 4.10).
Figure 4.8: Manufacturing of cylindrical two-axis, three-chambered FEA actuator

(SoRo-Track) in laboratory conditions with 3d printed Nylon mould
from ELASTOSIL®VARIO 15/40. a) Process steps. b) Mould geometry.
c) Images of fabrication steps.
Figure 4.9: Manufacturing of the cylindrical SoRo-Track actuator in laboratory

conditions using ELASTOSIL®M4601.
4.6 appendix a. supplementary data 79
Figure 4.10: Manufacturing of corrugated two-axis three-chamebred FEA (SoRo-

Track) actuator in laboratory conditions with 3d printed Nylon
mould using ELASTOSIL®VARIO 15/40. a) Process steps. b) Mould
geometry. c) Images of fabrication steps.
Figure 4.11: Quick-cast industrial manufacturing of corrugated two-axis three-

chambered FEA (SoRo-Track) based on compression moulding and
“what” rubber.
COUPLING OF HARD AND SOFT ROBOTICS: HYBRID
5
M E TA L - E L A S T O M E R I C P N E U M AT I C 2 - D O F A C T U AT O R S
W I T H VA R I A B L E S T I F F N E S S
Hybrid soft-hard-material robots have potential to connect the best of tradi-

tional hard robots and emerging soft robots. In this article, we propose a
novel hybrid metal-elastomeric two degrees of freedom (DOF) pneumati-
cally driven variable stiffness actuator (VSA), called Hybrid-pneuVSA. It
consists of a single-body three-chambered soft actuator and a metal uni-
versal (U) joint from classical mechanics. The U-joint provides structural
stability to the soft actuator, enabling precise and controlled movements.
On the other hand, all advantages of fluid-driven elastomeric actuators,
such as inherent compliance, high power-to-weight ratio, large stroke, low
inertia, and simple manufacturing are retained. In addition, due to antago-
nistic coupling of the moments coming from the three pressure chambers,
variable stiffness is obtained, which is one of the most desirable features
of robots operating in complex, unstructured real-world environments.
We analysed three different 2-DOF metal joints: outer universal, internal
chained universal, and internal flexible, in terms of deflection, stiffness,
and damping. We report stiffness variation of up to three times (200%
increase) at a pressure difference of 1.9 bar. We modelled the pressure-to-
angle/stiffness characteristic and developed a feed-forward angle/stiffness
control. Hybrid-pneuVSA are applied in building-scale kinematic photo-
voltaic facades as motion drivers. Other ptential applications as actuated
2-DOF joints with variable stiffness are in robotic applications, such as in
safe soft robotic arms, safe soft legged robots, hand-like grippers, minimally
invasive surgery manipulators, and solar trackers for commercial PV fields.
Svetozarevic, B., Stojanovic, N., Begle, M., Nagy, Z., & Schlueter, A. Coupling of hard and soft
robotics: Hybrid metal-elastomeric pneumatic 2-DOF actuators with variable stiffness. Soft
Robotics. In Review (2018)
81
82 hybrid metal-elastomeric pneumatic 2-dof actuators
5.1 introduction
Traditional hard and emerging soft-material robots represent two opposite

ends of the robotics world, with their own design spaces, construction prin-
ciples, and scopes of application. Hard robots consist of rigid links, discrete
joints, and electromechanical actuators, and are capable of precisely, quickly,
and reliably executing repeatable tasks in structured environments [93]. On
the other end, soft robots, made of elastic and flexible materials, utilize
material deformation to move their parts and perform tasks [94]. Despite
this contrast, rigid and soft robots have complementary advantages (Fig.
5.1.). By combining a rigid-body skeleton (a joint with rigid links) with a
soft actuator, structural stability is introduced to the soft actuator, allow-
ing for its more precise and controlled motions and larger forces, while
inherent compliance, high-power-to-weight ratio, and low friction of the
soft actuator is retained. Such hybrid soft-hard-material actuators resemble
musculoskeletal structures found in vertebrates, with soft muscles and
hard skeletons [95]. The biological muscles are antagonistically coupled
around skeletal joints and when simultaneously actuated they can pro-
vide variable stiffness. The variable stiffness is a fundamental feature of
animals that enables their astonishing dexterity and agility, as well as adapt-
ability and safety in interacting with complex, unstructured real-world
environments [96]. Therefore, it is one of the most desirable features of
contemporary robots [97, 98].
Introducing variable stiffness in hard robots has been a topic of substantial
interest over the last two decades and diverse successful variable stiffness
actuators (VSAs) have been reported [63, 99]. Henceforth we refer to these
actuators as hard-VSAs.These actuators power some of the best performing
robots of today that operate in natural environments, such as humanoid
Atlas from Boston Dynamics [100], quadruped Cheetah from MIT [101],
and quadruped ANYmal from ETH Zurich [102]. Also, the first robots for
safe human-robot collaboration that have been recently reported, such as
DLR arm [103], are also based on hard-VSAs. Despite being one of the best
performing robots of today, the results of the last DARPA’s challenge show
that these types of robots still find challenging the tasks which are relatively
simple for humans [104]. As Guizzo and Ackerman highlighted, hard-VSAs
present an increased mechanical and software complexity which makes
their further improvement a significant engineering challenge.
On the other hand, robots based on soft actuators possess inheren compli-
ance, which allows for reduction of control complexity in interaction with
5.1 introduction 83
natural environments [15, 85]. Therefore, together with other promising

features of soft actuators, such as high force-to-weight ratio, low friction,
and large strokes, soft robots have the potential to reach or even outperform
current robots based on hard-VSAs [97]. To achieve this, soft actuators need
to match the speeds of hard-VSAs, while allowing the variation and control
of their stiffness. Achieving variable stiffness in soft robots is considered
as one of the core challenges, due to the inherent compliance of soft mate-
rials [16]. There are two main approaches to this: the use of “semi-active”
actuators that can change their elastic properties (Young’s modulus) and the
use of “active” actuators (that provide forces) arranged in an antagonistic
manner.
The first approach led to actuators and materials, such as ones based
on granular jamming [12, 105], shape memory alloys [106], and thermally-
active polymers [107], which are mainly used in combination with active
approaches to change actuator stiffness. Based on the second approach, a
few combinations of soft actuators pairs have been reported, using fluid-
driven elastomer actuators (FEAs) and electroactive polymers (EAPs), such
as EAP-EAP [108], FEA-tendons [52, 109, 110], and FEA-FEA [111, 112].
EAP-EAP designs have the highest speed of stiffening/destiffening, but
relatively small strokes (in mm) and stiffness variation (≈2x). FEA-tendons
designs show the slowest stiffening/destiffening and introduce additional
complexity to the initial FEA based system due to use of electric motors
for pulling tendons. On the other hand, FEA-FEA designs have the largest
strokes, moderate speed of stiffening (0.1s – 1s), moderate reported stiffness
variation (≈10x), and can achieve variable stiffness without introducing
additional complexity (only using the pressurized fluid already available in
the system). Together with simple and cost-effective ways of manufacturing
and recent improvements in actuation speed of FEAs [17], we believe that
FEA-FEA designs with rigid skeletons have the potential to become viable
rivals of hard-VSAs in the future. Note that we are only interested in
antagonistic FEA-FEA designs with rigid skeleton, as the designs without a
skeleton lack structural stability when deflated, thus exclude all the benefits
of having structural stability in soft actuators.
Among the most known FEA-FEA designs with antagonistic coupling
around rigid skeletons are actuators based on a predecessor of today’s
FEAs, the McKibben actuator [113]. The McKibben actuators consist of a
rubber tube covered with a helically braided shell, which, on pressuriza-
tion, expands radially, generating a contraction in the axial (or actuation)
direction. They can develop very large forces (e.g. 5000N at 5 bar, for an
Figure 5.1: Coupling of hard and soft robotics: Overview of features of actuators
built from hard, soft and hybrid soft-hard materials, such as Hybrid-
pneuVSA.
actuator with a self-weight weight of 100 g and a maximum volume of 500

cm3 [114]) and have been used in robotic, medical, and industrial applica-
tions, typically in 1-DOF joints [114–116]. Their limitations are in a limited
contraction ratio of 40% and relatively slow response times between 0.2s
and 1s. Even though improvements in McKibben actuators performance
have been recently reported [117–119], the best performing McKibben type
actuator has a 65% contraction ratio [120].
FEAs, as fabricated in the process of 3d moulding [11, 85], can have large
strokes, expanding to several times of their initial length, when corrugated
walls are used [18]. Also, Mosadegh et al. have demonstrated actuation
speeds of 50ms by using the corrugated walls and minimizing the amount
of air needed for actuation [17]. However, there has not been a lot of research
on FEAs antagonistically coupled around hard joints. To the best of our
knowledge, only Skorina et al. [121, 122] show 1-DOF joint and 2-DOF
universal (U) joints with two and three antagonistically coupled cylindrical
5.1 introduction 85
FEAs with helical reinforcement, respectively. The reported bending angle

is +/- 20º in both axes and maximum sinusoidal reference tracking at 1
Hz. However, as the actuators are long and narrow and not connected
to the joint in both designs, they are prone to buckling under external
disturbances.
In this article, we propose a novel 2-DOF hybrid soft-hard-material pneu-
matic actuator with variable stiffness, called Hybrid-pneuVSA (Fig. 2). The
Hybrid-pneuVSA comprises of a single-body soft actuator, ,called corru-
gated SoRo-Track (firstly introduced in our previous work [87]), with three
bellow-like chambers radially distributed around a central vertical open-
ing, and a metal 2-DOF U-joint from classical mechanics. The actuator is
fabricated in a single casting step following the Quick-cast method [123].
Pressure differences in the three air chambers generate three antagonistically
coupled moments on the U-joint, which enables achieving variable stiffness.
The variable stiffness is achieved using only a single mode of actuation,
pressurisation with compressed-air, which is simpler compared to other
soft-VSAs that typically use two actuation methods, e.g. compressed-air
and heat [107].
We analysed coupling the soft actuator with three different 2-DOFs
joints: internal flexible (IF), internal chained universal (ICU), and outer
universal (OU) (Fig. 2). We compared the hybrid actuators in terms of
pressure-deflection behaviour, attainable stiffness change, and damping. We
performed the analysis at pressures up to 1.9 bar (190 kPa), as this is the
pressure limit for the most common commercial pneumatic valves. As the
most interesting designs we identified the OU and ICU joints. The OU-joint
provides the highest absolute stiffness over the whole range, while the
ICU-joint allows for the highest variability in stiffness and damping. The
maximal stiffness change achieved at 190 kPa was around 3x (185% absolute
increase). Based on this initial analysis, we selected the hybrid actuator with
ICU-joint for further detailed analysis, such as the characterisation of the
maximal stiffness change over the whole actuation range, for modelling the
angle-stiffness behaviour, and for developing a feedforward angle-stiffness
controller based on the obtained model.
Figure 5.2: Hybrid-pneuVSAs: Elastomeric-metal 2-DOFs actuators with variable

stiffness. (a) Soft-material-only three-chambered actuator. (b) Cou-
pling with the flexible joint. (c) Coupling with the internal chainned
universal joint. (d) Coupling with the outer universal joint.
5.2 pressure-deflection analysis
5.2.1 Methodology
The basic purely soft material actuator is compared with the three hybrid
designs (IFU, ICU, and OU-joints) in order to assess the advantages and
limitations of each design. The soft actuator receives pressures in the three
chambers as control inputs which lead to different pitch and roll orienta-
tions. As the soft actuator is radially symmetric, we just show results for the
roll angle, where the main axis of actuation of chamber 1 is aligned with the
pitch angle of the IMU sensor (see Fig. 5.6a). The goal of this analysis is to
determine the shapes of the pressure-deflection curves and the maximum
angle reach (Fig. 5.3a). We applied pressure in a “stair-steps” profile going
from 0 to 190 kPa in increments of 20 kPa. When the maximum pressure
is reached, the pressure is decreased following the same profile (Fig. 5.3b).
The duration of each stair step is defined such that the actuator reaches
the steady state after the transition, in this case 5 seconds. The pressure-
deflection points are extracted as the steady state values before the next
step occurs (Fig. 5.3c).
5.2 pressure-deflection analysis 87
Figure 5.3: (a) Pressure-deflection curves of different actuator structures when

chamebr 1 is inflated.
5.2.2 Results
The results show that different hard joints introduce different bending
restrictions. At the maximum applied pressure of 190 kPa, the outer U-joint
introduces the highest reduction of 37.6% compared to the maximum angle
reach of the purely soft actuator, while the internal joints, the internal
flexible and chained internal, introduce only minor reductions of 3.5% and
12.3%, respectively. This is an expected result, given the joints kinematics.
The outer U-joint introduces the highest restriction to bending due to the
inconsistency of the two fixed rotational axes with the bending axis of the
soft actuator. The upper fixed rotation axis forces the top plate of the soft
actuator to bend around it, instead of allowing the soft actuator to expand
in the axial direction and bend around an axis which is outside of the
actuator’s body. Contrary to this, the chained internal U-joint consists of
four 1-DOF joints of which two by two have parallel axes, thus following
better the bending path of the soft actuator. Finally, the flexible internal joint
is a continuum joint, which also expands slightly when bent, restricting the
original bending by only 3.5%.
All three hybrid structures inherit a hysteresis effect from the basic
structure. However, under the same pressure, the amplitude of the hysteresis
does not change with the actuator structure and stays mostly around a
few degrees, up to maximal 6◦ , when the same pressure is considered (Fig.
5.3a).
5.3 response to external distrubance
5.3.1 Methodology
Due to very low effective inertia of FEAs, a step response to pressure (system
input) change is typically without large oscilations, as one can also see in
Fig. 5.3c for the pressure changes of 20 kPa. Hence, the input-to-output
(pressure-to-angle) model of the actuator can be described as a first-order
model with the system gain determined by the pressure-deflection curve
(Fig. 5.3a), as we shown in our previous work on cylindrical three-chamber
actuator [75]. However, due to the elastic properties of soft actuators, the
external distrubances which regularly occure in interaction with the real-
world environment, have significant influence on the actuator’s dynamics.
In our aplication case, the disturbance is wind, which can transfer a rather
large force to the soft actuator due to a large area (40 cm by 40 cm) of the
attached PV panel.
We analysed the step response of the Hybrid-pneuVSAs to an external
disturbance by attaching a weight of 500 g to one corner of the PV panel as
sketched in Fig. 5.4 (the image of the experimental setup used is shown in
Fig. 5.6a). The weight of 500 g was chosen to generate sufficient deflection
but still not to drive the actuator to its bending limits (45◦ ). Then, the string
which connected the PV panel and the weight was cut, thus simulating
the external step disturbance. This procedure triggers a PV panel rotation
in one (roll) direction which is recorded by the inertial measurement unit
(IMU) attached to the PV panel. We assumed that the response to external
disturbancess (also known as behaviour around equilibrium positions for
elastic systems) can be modeled as a second order linear time invariant
(LTI) system [124] with the following transfer function:
K
G (s) = (5.1)
s2 + 2ζωn s + ωn2
where ζ is damping ratio and ωn is natural frequency of the system G (s).

For stable systems with vanishing oscillatory behavior, which is the expected
behavior of an FEA, the damping ratio takes values in 0 < ζ < 1. On the
other hand, the natural frequency ωn defines the oscillation period of an
5.3 response to external distrubance 89
undamped system (ζ = 0). For other systems, the natural frequency is

an internal system parameter which in combination with ζ defines the
dominant time constant of the upper and lower exponential envelope of the
step response, as follows:
1
Td = (5.2)
ζωn
The dominant time constant is the measure of how quickly a system goes
through the transient; lower values of Td mean faster response and vice
versa.
The parameters of the second order model (5.1) were estimated using
the logarithmic decrement method [125]. The logarithmic decrement is
calculated as the natural logarithm of the ratio of any two successive
amplitude peaks in the step response (Fig. 5.3b):
1 x (t)
δ= ln (5.3)
n x (t + nT )
where T is the oscillation period (Fig. 5.3b), x (t) is the amplitude at time t
and x (t + nT ) is the amplitude of the peak n periods away. The damping
ratio ζ is then found from the logarithmic decrement by:
1
ζ= q (5.4)
1 + ( 2π
δ )
2
Similarly, the natural frequency ωn is calculated as:
2π
ωn = p (5.5)
T 1 − ζ2
The step response of each of the four actuators is recorded seven times.
Each time with different nominal pressures in all three chambers (henceforth
called common chamber pressure), resulting in 28 step experiments in total.
Note that after changing the common chamber pressure, the pneumatic
2/2-way valves that connect the chambers with a pressure regulator had
to be closed so that the air cannot escape one chamber and distrubute
into the other two when the disturbance occurs. The applied chamber
pressure values were 0.0, 0.5 , 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.5 and 1.9 bar. As a result of
these 28 experiments, one can distinguish differences in damping ratio
and dominant time constant for different chamber pressures for all four
actuator types. We also analysed the maximumal deflection caused by the
external load at different pressures, in order to show the static behavior of
the actautors as well.
Figure 5.4: (a) Sketch of the external disturbance step experiment setup. (b)
Pointes of interenest for logarithmic decrement algorithm. (c) Val-
idation of second order system approximation. Measured system
response compared to simulated response.
5.3.2 Results
In order to validate the assumption that the disturbance-to-angle dynamics

of the actuators can be modelled as the second-order LTI system, the
measured actuators’ responses were compared to the ones of the models
with identified parameters. An example validation plot for the hybrid
actuator with the chained internal structure at 0.8 bar is shown in Figure
5.3c). The model matches very well the measurements. All other responses
show similar match, and this figure was arbitrary chosen.
The maximal static deflection caused by external load decreases with
higher chamber pressures for all actuators (Figure 5.5a). This effect is much
more pronaunced for pressures higher than 1.2 bar. Worth noticing is the
lowest deflection of the outer structure due to the initial high stiffness.
This can be also anticipated from the above analysis of pressure-deflection
curves (Fig. 5.3a), where the outer U-joint limits the most the movement of
the soft actuator.
The damping ratio ζ (Figure 5.5b) and natural frequency ωn (Figure
5.5c) increase with pressure increase for all four actuators. However, the
curve shapes are different. The actuator with the outer joint displays much
smaller changes in damping ratio with different pressures when compared
to other structures. However, the actuator with the chained internal joint
5.3 response to external distrubance 91
has the steepest growth and allows for the largest change in damping rate.
This suggests that the actuator with the chained internal joint allows for
a wide possibility of internal parameter changes through the setting of
corresponding pressures.
In the end, the dominant time constant Td is calculated from ζ and ωn
for all actuators and all chamber pressure values (Figure 5.5d). Clearly, all
actuators express shorter transients with higher pressures. The lowest Td
value has the outer sturcture, for all pressure values. However, the chained
internal structure decreseas Td much faster when pressure is increased,
and almost has the same value of Td for chamber pressures of 1.9 bar.
Therefore, even though initially the outer structure exhibits better transient
performance at lower pressures, when the pressure increses, the chained
internal structure can achieve a similar performance as the outer structure,
with the tendency to have even shorter transients at pressures higher than
1.9 bar.
Figure 5.5: (a) Maximal deflection caused by external disturbance of 500 g.

(b) Dampring ratio, (c) Natural frequency, and (d) Dominant time
constant with respect to changes in chamber pressures for different
actuator structures. The pressure in all chambers was the same for
each measurement.
5.4 stiffness analysis
Stiffness is the property of a body that describes its ability to resist structural
deformation when external load is applied. A common example is a long
stick of a certain material where an external force F is applied in the axial
direction and causes an extension ∆l in the same direction. For this example,
Hooke’s law defines the stiffness coefficient as k = F/∆l. By analogy, one
can also define a relation between the bending moment M and the angular
deformational response. In this way the bending stiffness is defined as
the ratio between applied moment and angle change as krot = M/α. Even
though stiffness represents a simple relation between applied load and
caused deformation, things can become complicated and ambiguous if the
loads and deformation directions are not defined in a strict way.
In the previous example, for most materials, the stick’s cross section will
contract while it expands axially under applied force. Therefore, one can
also search for a stiffness coefficient between the force applied in x-direction
and the structure deformation in any direction (e.g. y-direction, z-direction).
Furthermore, the origin and direction of a force vector F bring additional
degrees of freedom which creates numerous possible definitions for the
stiffness coefficient. Still, one can fully describe a local deformation by
using three direct strain components and three shear strain components
which yield a 6x6 material stiffness matrix [126]. When rotational types
of stiffness are also taken into account, things become even more intricate
and obtaining all stiffness coefficients for a full description of a system,
caan be extremely demanding and time consuming. Fortunately, in order to
draw some conclusions about a system only one specific or a few stiffness
coefficients are needed. To avoid confusion and ambiguity when the stiffness
coefficient values are analyzed, the force (moment) vector defined, as well
as the measured deformation, must be clearly defined.
5.4.1 Methodology
The experimenal setup for finding the stiffness coefficient of the actuator is
shown in Fig. 5.6a. It consists of a hybrid soft-hard actuator with a thin-film
PV panel, an IMU sensor MPU-9250 from InvenSenseTM for measuring
deflection angles, a stepper motor Nema23, a load cell AL6N-C3-10kg-3B6
from Variohm Euro Sensor, a metal string, and a metal ring for guiding the
metal string. During an experiment, the motor vertically translates the load
cell. As the load cell is connected to the corner of the PV panel via the metal
5.4 stiffness analysis 93
Figure 5.6: (a) Experimental setup for analysing the actuator’s stiffness. (b) Ge-
ometrical model of the setup during stiffness analysis. (c) Raw load
cell measurements during one stiffness analysis. (d) The stiffness
coefficient as the best linear least-squares fit of the torque/angle
samples.
string, it causes the actuator’s deflection, which is measured using the IMU
sensor. Also, the pulling force of the motor is measured by the load cell to
get the quantitative value of the applied force. A small ring is used to keep
the string perpendicular to the load cell (to match the load cell’s measuring
direction). Before conducting any experiments, the load cell was calibrated.
A coordinate frame and mathematical description of a system are in-
troduced in order to strictly define all vectors (Fig. 5.6b). Two points are
particularly important. The point P1 is the corner of the PV panel to which
the connecting string is attached and defines the displacement from the
rotation axis, while also serving as the force vector origin. The second
important point is P2 , which is the place of the guiding ring. It defines the
direciton of the force acting on P1 . After adopting the orientation of the roll
angle θ as shown in Fig. 5.6b, the coordinates of points P1 and P2 are:
x1 = d cos(θ ) + h cos(90 − θ ), x2 = const.

(5.6)
y1 = −d sin(θ ) + h sin(90 − θ ), y2 = const.
where h represents the height of the actuator and d is the half-diagonal

distance of the PV panel. The point P2 is fixed in space, hence its coordinates
need to be directly measured. The values of these parameters are: h = 8 cm,
d = 31.5 cm, x2 = 8.1 cm and y2 = −35.7 cm.
When a force F is applied, an equivalent moment in the coordinate origin
(actuator’s point of view) can be calculated as:
~ = ~p × ~F
M (5.7)
or defined by previously introduced variables as:
~ ~ ~ ~
~ = P1 × | F |( P2 − P1 )
M (5.8)
~ − P1
| P2 ~ |
The moment M ~ has only a z-axis direction since ~p and ~F are both always
defined only in xy plane. Hence, the angle deflection around the z axis, θ is
directly measured by IMU as roll angle. Now, when all variables are defined,
the actuator’s stiffness coefficient in (in roll direction) can be defined as a
linear dependence between the angle θ and moment M:
M = k·θ (5.9)
We were interested in comparing the stiffness of the three hybrid actuators

at different chamber pressures to the stiffness of the purely soft actuator.
For each of the actuator, seven experiments were done. Each time all three
chamber pressures were set to one of the seven values: 0.0, 0.5, 0.8, 1.0,
1.2, 1.5 and 1.9 bar. Afterwards, the stiffness experiment was conducted to
5.4 stiffness analysis 95
obtain the stiffneess coefficient. In total, we conducted 28 experiments for

stiffness comparison.
During the experiment, the motor periodically shifted the load cell and
made pauses in order to measure the quasi-static steady state. The pauses
are necessary because the transients hide viscoelastic effects [127] which
must be neglected when the stiffness coefficient is calculated. In this way,
during one experiment up to 20 measurement pairs of applied force and
caused angle deflection were generated. An example of raw data points
and those selected for further analysis are shown in Fig. 5.6c. After the data
points are sampled and the moment M is calculated, the stiffness coefficient
is estimated as the best (in Least-Squares sense) first order fit with respect
to all data points (Fig. 5.6d).
5.4.2 Results
The stiffness coefficients for every actuator and every chamber pressure are
estimated from the measured torque-deflection curves. All torque-deflection
curves exhibited close to linear dependency. As one could anticipate from
the above pressure-deflection and transient analyses, the hybrid actuator
with the outer U-joint exhibits the highest stiffness, followed by ones with
the chained internal, the flexible internal, and the basic soft-material-only
actuator (Fig. 5.7). Therefore, all the hybrid actuators achieved higher
absolute stiffness than the purely soft actuator. However, analysing the
relative increase of the stiffness coefficient with respect to chamber pressures
yields another important conclusion (Fig. 5.8).
The stiffness coefficient of the outer structure increases notably less than
any other structure’s for the same change in input pressures. For the pres-
sure of 1.9 bar, the outer structure increases its stiffness by 57%, while the
chained internal structure increases its stiffness by 174%, compared to the
initial stiffness value at 0 bar. This shows a narrow range of possible stiff-
ness values achieved by the outer structure actuator. Therefore, the hybrid
actuator with the chained internal joint can achieve a three times wider
range of possible stiffness values than with the outer joint. Furthermore, the
hybrid actuator with the chained internal U-joint has a tendency to reach
the absolute stiffness value of the one with the outer joint for pressures
higher than 2 bar. Because of this, the hybrid actuator with the chained
internal joint was selected for pressure-to-angle/stiffness modeling and
feedforward control development.
5.5 pressures-to-stiffness modeling
5.5.1 Methodology
The stiffness behavior of the chained internal structure is analyzed when

different pressure values are set in the individual chambers of the actuator.
For this purpose, pressure values of 0.0, 0.8, 1.2 and 1.9 bar were set in all
possible combinations in the individual chambers. This yielded 64 exper-
iments which produced 64 stiffness coefficients with respect to chamber
pressures. The experiments were conducted in the same manner as in the
previous section on stiffness analysis. However, some difference in data
processing is necessary. Setting different chamber pressures causes rotation
in both pitch α and roll θ angle. In that way, the PV panel corner, which is
the point of interest, is positioned in 3D space. All equations for moment
calculation stay the same as they were in 2D case when different actuator
structures were compared. The only difference is in the introduction of a
3rd dimension vectorial component (Fig. 5.9).
Figure 5.7: Measured torque-deflection values of (a) soft-material-only actua-

tor and hybrid actuators with (b) flexible internal joint, (c) chained
internal universal joint, and (d) outer universal joint.
5.5 pressures-to-stiffness modeling 97
Figure 5.8: (a) Stifness increase and (b) relative stiffness increase with the change
in chamber pressures for soft-material-only and three hybrid soft-
hard-material actuators.
Figure 5.9: Sketch of the experimental setup for stiffness analysis in two axes.
The position of the corner of the PV panel, point P1, is calculated as:
x1 = d cos(θ ) + h cos(90 − θ ) cos(α)

y1 = −d sin(θ ) + h sin(90 − θ ) cos(α) (5.10)
z1 = h sin(α)
while the ring position, point P2, is still constant in space. The angles α and
θ are measured directly by the IMU, h represents height of the actuator,
and d is the half-diagonal distance of the PV panel. The values of these
parameters are: h = 8 cm, d = 31.5 cm, x2 = 8.1 cm and y2 = −35.7 cm
z2 = 0 cm. Then, the corresponding bending moment is calculated as:
~ = ~p × ~F
M (5.11)
or defined by previously introduced variables:
~ ~ ~ ~
~ = P1 × | F |( P2 − P1 )
M (5.12)
~ − P1
| P2 ~ |
Still, the stiffness coefficient of interest is the one relating the change in roll
angle to the corresponding moment around the z-axis. Therefore, when the
moment M is calculated it would have three components in general case,
and only the z-axis component is used for finding the stiffness coefficient:
Mz = k · θ (5.13)
A black box (data driven) approach is used for modeling the stiffness
coefficient with respect to the individual chamber pressures because of the
complex relation between the actuator shape, pressures, and output angle
values. Based on previous results, we made a general assumption that the
actuator’s stiffness will increase with higher pressures in the chambers.
Therefore, we examined several nonlinear multivariable growing functions
in order to find an adequate relation between the stiffness coefficient and
the chamber pressures. However, any data can be fitted arbitrarily well
with enough degrees of freedom in the fitting function. In order to avoid
overfitting the data, a cross-validation method [128] is used. The obtained
stiffness samples are randomly divided into two sets, a training set and a
testing set. The training set is used to find the function parameters, while
the test set is used for validation of the obtained function. Ten samples
(15.62%) of all 64 were used for testing and the root-mean-square-error
(RMSE) is used as a measure for validation. Then, the cross validation was
repeated ten times, and the mean of ten RMSE values was calculated. This
whole procedure was repeated for different multivariate exponential and
polynomial functions in order to find the fitting function F with the lowest
RMSE mean.
Once the function type was set, all data samples were used for the
function parameter estimation. We defined a mathematical optimization
problem in order to estimate the parameters [129]. Besides the convenience
of defining a custom cost function, the optimization approach enables a
simple way of defining constraints. The adopted cost function is defined as
a sum of absolute errors between measured samples and model predicted
values. Additional constraints requered for the first partial derivatives of F
to be positive. These constraints guarantee that a monotonically growing
function with respect to chamber pressures will be obtained. Mathematically
this optimization problem is expressed as:
64
∂F
J = arg max ∑ |YM − F ( p1 , p2 ,3 , C1:n )| such that > 0, ∀i=1:3
C1:n i =1
∂pi
(5.14)
where YM is measured value of the stiffness coefficient, C1:n are n unknown
function coefficients and pi are individual chamber pressures. Matlab’s
Optimization Toolbox is used for solving the optimisation problem.
5.5.2 Results
The stiffness coefficient when individual chambers have different pressure

was measured for all pressure combinations of 0.0, 0.8, 1.2, 1.9 bar. Three
pressure values and one stiffness value constitute a 4D data set which
is challenging to present in a compact form. Therefore, two different ap-
proaches were used for showing the results. In the first one, the dependency
between the pressure in chamber 1, the pressure in chamber 2, and the
stiffness coefficient is represented, while the pressure in chamber 3 is fixed
at some constant value (Fig. 5.10b). In the second approach, we used the
three pressure values to determine the position of the point in the Cartesian
3D space and then we plotted it as a ball which color defines the stiffness
value (Figure 5.10a.
A slight asymmetry in the stiffness coefficients w.r.t. the pressures can
be noticed. In other words, not all chambers possess the same stiffness
coefficient. Visually, it can be inferred that chamber 1 has the greatest
impact. This is the consequence of the mounting position of the actuator in
Figure 5.10: Stiffness coefficient w.r.t. Ch1 and Ch2 pressures when Ch3=0 bar
the experimental setup (Fig. 5.9), where chamber 1 receives larger stress than
chambers 2 and 3 under external distrubance. Therefore, the pressure inside
chamber 1 has the highest influence on the stiffness coefficient defined in
this way. If the actuator had been mounted rotated by 180◦ around y-axis,
then chambers 2 and 3 would have had the highest influence. This again
shows the importance of strict stiffness coefficient definition and possible
data misinterpretation if a system is not very well described .
The methodology for the function type selection resulted in a second
order polynomial function:
k = F ( p1 , p2 , p3 ) = C1 p21 + C2 p1 p2 + C3 p1 p3 + C4 p1 +
C5 p22 + C6 p2 p3 + C7 p2 + C8 p23 + (5.15)
C9 p3 + C10
and the optimization provided the following coefficient values: (C1 , ..., C10 ) =
(30.53, 0.02, 0.14, 0.09, 17.08, 5.92, 0.29, 15.84, 0.64, 100). In order to have
a better representation of the stiffness change, this function outputs relative
stiffness values in percentage, relative to the initial (the lowest) stiffness
coefficient at 0 bar, for all chambers. Absolute stiffness coefficient values
can be simply retrieved from relative stiffness when the minimal stiffness
coefficient of 1.38 Nm/rad is known.
Analyzing the individual coefficients, leads to the same conclusion as
one can visually notice. The pressure in Chamber 1 influences the stiffness
more than the pressures in chambers 2 and 3. One should also notice
the symmetry in the function’s coefficients related to the chambers 2 and
3. This symmetry is expected and validates the adopted model because
the positions of chambers 2 and 3 are symmetric to the external load.
Slight differences are probably caused by some minor differences in the
actuator’s body structure (e.g. different rubber thickness, chamber size,
nonsymmetrical chained rod binding, etc.).
The stiffness values predicted by the model (small balls) are shown
together with the measured values (big spheres) Fig. 5.10a). The histogram
of the relative model prediction error shows that more than 70% of data
samples have a relative error of less than 10% (Fig. 5.11).
Figure 5.11: The histogram of relative prediction error of stiffness values
5.6 pressures-to-angles modeling
5.6.1 Methodology
The starting point for angle deflection modeling is the hexagonal pressure-
deflection curve. This curve is obtained by setting different pressures in
individual chambers, as well as in combinations of two by two chambers.
The basic idea is to find the principal direction of actuation for each cham-
ber [75] and assume a superposition principle when multiple chambers are
actuated. The principal actuation directions ~di are streightforward to extract
from the hexagonal pressure-deflection curves as the direction of a linear
function defined by measurements (Fig. 5.12).
The other part is modeling the intensity of a vector. The intensity is
assumed to be the total deflection in both rotational directions, i.e., the
Euclidean distance from (0,0) to the measured data point. The goal is to
estimate the deflection in a chamber’s principal direction of actuation given
the pressure in that chamber. By doing so, three different functions (Ii ( pi ))
need to be found, one for each chamber. By combining both direction and
intensity, the model can be written ass:
3
[α, θ ]( p1 , p2 , p3 ) = ∑ ~di · Ii ( pi ), where |~di | = 1 ∀i=1:3 (5.16)
i =1
5.6 pressures-to-angles modeling 103
30 0.5 bar
0.8 bar
1.0 bar
20 d1 1.2 bar
1.5 bar
1.9 bar
Roll angle [°]

10
0
d2 d3
-10
-20
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30
Pitch angle [°]
Figure 5.12: Deflection angles with the principal directions of actuation of each
chamber
5.6.2 Results
The obtained principal actuation directions, ~di , and their defining values
are shown in Fig. 5.13a. When the intensity Ii functions are considered,
a quadratic function is adopted to model the deflection intensity of each
chamber for a given pressure (Fig. 5.13b). For the measured data samples,
the quadratic function turned out to have the least RMSE compared to
exponential functions, while higher order polynomial functions tend to
overfit the data. The analytical forms of obtained quadratic function are:
I1 ( p1 ) = 5.6358 · p21 + 2.0688 · p1

I2 ( p2 ) = 4.9829 · p22 + 3.3404 · p2 (5.17)
I3 ( p3 ) = 4.1998 · p23 + 2.4819 · p3
The model is tested by comparing the prediction values to measured val-

ues (Fig. 5.14a). The histogram of absolute errors shows that the prediction
error is less than 1◦ for more than 80% of data samples (Fig. 5.14b).
Figure 5.13: Principal actuaton directions of all three chambers

5.6 pressures-to-angles modeling 105
a 30
Measurement
Model output
20
10
Roll angle [°]
10
-20
-30
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30
Pitch angle [°]
b 60
55
50
45
Sample ratio [%]
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Apsolute error [°]
Figure 5.14: Comparison of measured deflection angles and predicted deflection

angles. b Absolute error histogram of angle deflection prediction
5.7 model-based feedforward control
5.7.1 Methodology
A model of a system enables predicting its output signals for a set of given
input signals. Often, it is of interest to know which input signals are needed
to obtain certain desired output values. This problem is known as a feedfor-
ward control problem and it requires solving an inverse problem, i.e. given
the system’s input-to-ouput model, find the output-to-input relation [130].
In the case of the hybrid soft-hard actuator, one should find the three cham-
ber pressures values ( p1 , p2 , p3 ) for a set of given deflection angles (α, θ )
and actuator’s stiffness k.
Since the pressure-to-deflection (5.17) and pressure-to-stiffness (5.15)
models are nonlinear (with the hard limits on the maximum pressure of 2.0
bar), there may or may not be a feasible solution to the inverse modeling
problem. In order to solve this problem, we applied again mathematical
optimization. By doing so, one will always receive some pressure values
which satisfy the requirements in some way. Maybe the most significant
benefit of using an optimisation approach is being independent of adopted
models. Therefore, one can change or adopt system models easily, without
any change in the solving algorithm. Another benefit of optimisation is the
freedom of assigning higher importance to some variable(s) of interest if all
requirements cannot be met.
The adopted cost function has the following form:
J = C¯1 · ∆α2 + C¯2 · ∆θ 2 + C¯3 · ∆k2 (5.18)
where ∆α, ∆θ, and ∆k are differences between the referece values and
predicted values of pitch angle, roll angle and relative stiffness, respectively.
The positive constants C¯1 , C¯2 , C¯3 are weighting factors. For examples, if
it is more important to precisely control the deflection angles, while the
stiffness value should be as close as possible to the reference value, then
the weighting factors could be selected as C¯1 = 100, C¯2 = 100, C¯3 = 1. The
optimisation problem can be formulated as:
[ p1 , p2 , p3 ] =arg min J
p1 , p2 , p3 (5.19)
subject to 0 ≥ Pi ≥ Pmax , Pmax = 2.0 bar, ∀i=1:3
and we apply the "interior-point" algorithm to solve it [129].

5.7 model-based feedforward control 107
Figure 5.15: Inverse model solution of the hybrid actuator with the chained
internal universal joint. For given reference angles ((a)) and stiffness
values (b), pressure values (c) are obtained.
5.7.2 Results
We present two specific feedforward control examples. In the first example

(Figure 5.15), the references for the pitch and the roll angle are 10◦ and
−5◦ , respectively. In the second example (Figure 5.16), the angle references
are set to 10◦ and 20◦ . In both cases, the relative stiffness reference is set to
all values between 100% and 400%. For each angles-stiffness combinations,
the optimisation problem is solved, and the pressure curves are obtained
(Figure 5.15c and Figure 5.16c). Clearly, only a part of requested references
can be completely fulfilled.
In the first example (Figure 5.15), a stiffness of about 130% to 240% can be
achieved without disturbing the angle values. Outside of this stiffness range,
one or more chamber pressures reach saturation. It can be noticed that both
angles are tightly kept at the reference values when the chamber pressures
are below the saturation limit. However, the angles slightly vary when the
reference stiffness cannot be achieved. How much they deviate from the
angle setpoints is determined by the coefficients C¯1 , C¯2 , C¯3 . Choosing lower
values for C¯1 and C¯2 would allow a wider angle band, whereas higher
values of these constants guarantee precise angle tracking.
In the second example (Figure 5.16) we show a challenging combination
of angles-stiffness setpoints from the actuator’s point of view. In order to
cause a roll angle of 20◦ , p1 must be very close to the maximal pressure.
This allows only a narrow stiffness range around 250%.
To illustrate these saturation effects caused by the maximum pressure in
the system, we calculated the maximum attainable stiffness for the whole
angle range, based on the above inverse model. The attainable stiffness
range depends on the setpoints of the pitch and roll angles. As the above
examples showed, the further an angle setpoint is from the initial position
(0◦ , 0◦ ), the higher the pressure required to reach that position is, hence
it reduces the availble pressure range up to the maximum pressure for
varying the stiffness. All possibly attainable stiffness values are shown
by the polygonal envelope surface (Fig. 5.17a). Its volume contains all
attainable stiffness values, while the polygonal edges determine the upper
and lower extreme values (Fig. 5.17b,c). The difference between the maximal
and minimal stiffness values creates the cone shape figure of the attainable
stiffness change (Fig. 5.17d). Clearly, its top is around (0◦ , 0◦ ) for both
angles (Fig. 5.17d).
5.8 conclusion
In this article we have discussed the benefits of coupling soft- and hard-
material robotic components and we introduced a novel hybrid soft-hard-
material 2-DOF pneumatically-driven actuator with variable stiffness. It
consist of a single-body three-chambered elastomeric actuator and a metal
U-joint from classical mechanics. The U-joint provides structural stability to
the soft actuator, thus enabling more precise and controlled movements. On
the other hand, all advantages of fluid-driven elastomeric actuators, such as
inherent compliance, high power-to-weight ratio, large stroke, low inertia,
and simple manufacturing are retained. In addition, due to antagonistic
5.8 conclusion 109
Figure 5.16: Inverse model solution of the hybrid actuator with the chained
internal universal joint when one of the chambers has almost reached
the maximum allowed pressure in the system. For given reference
angles ((a)) and stiffness values (b), pressure values (c) are obtained.
coupling of the moments generated by the three pressurised chambers, the

actuator’s stiffness can be adjusted. We analysed three different hybrid
actuator designs, with a flexible internal joint, a chained universal internal
joint, and an outer universal joint, in terms of pressure-deflection charac-
teristics, dynamic response to external disturbance (damping ratio, natural
frequency, dominant time constant), and pressure-stiffness characteristics.
In general, the hybrid actuators with the universal joints (chainned inter-
nal and outer) can be regarded as superior solutions compared to hybrid
actuator with the flexible internal joint. When the outer universal and
Figure 5.17: (a) Attainable stiffness range for different deflection angles. (b) Max-
imal stiffness values for different deflection angles. (c) Minimal
stiffness values for different deflection angles. Region of possible
change in stiffness for different deflection angles in 3D (d) and 2D
(e).
5.8 conclusion 111
chained-universal internal structures are compared, there is no ultimate

answer which structure is better. The chained internal structure leads to
the most versatile actuator which can reach the widest stiffness range. It
had only a minor reduction in maximal deflection angle of 3◦ compared to
the initial soft actuator without any hard-material components introduced.
Also, the chained internal structure achieved the widest range of values
for the damping coefficient. Furthermore, the chained internal structure
produces the highest increase in stiffness values, of around three times
(180% increase) at 1.9 bar. On the other hand, the outer strucuture has the
highest absolute stiffness over the whole chamber pressure range, meaning
the highest structural stability for the whole range of input signals. For
wind stabilisation purposes in real weather, the outer structure should yield
the best results.
Besides the comparison of the hybrid soft-hard structures, a data driven
model of the hybrid actuator was developed. The obtained models were
used afterwards for finding the model-based feedforward control values.
This required solving the inverse model problem. Rather than solving
for inverse model equations, the optimisation approach was proposed for
finding the pressure values which drive the actuator to the reference values
of orientation angles (pitch and roll) and stiffness. This allows for controling
both angles and stiffness at the same time, while the chamber pressure
values respect the constraint of the maximum allowed pressure in the
system. Using this model, we were able to calculate the maximum attainable
stiffness over the whole pitch-roll angle range of the actuator. We showed
that it is possible to precisely follow both angles and stiffness setpoints at
the same time. For the angle-stiffness setpoints which are outside of the
attainable region, the optimisation algorithm allowes one to select what is
more important: achieving angle precision or a certain stiffness value, by
changing the weighting factors of the optimisation problem.
The hybrid actuator with the outer unversal joint is currently imple-
mented as a motion driving device in a building-scale kinetic photovoltaic
facade with 30 elements at the NEST building at the Swiss Federal Labora-
tories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) in Switzerland [87]. We
believe that our hybrid actuators (both the hybrid actautor with the outer
universal joint and the hybrid actuator with the chainned universal joint)
can be used as compact 2-DOF variable stiffness drives for many robotic
applications, such as for lightweight and safe soft robotic arms and soft
robotic legged robots, if downscaled, for grippers with variable stiffness
and for minimal invasive surgery manipulators with variable stiffness. If
scalled up, they could be used as cost-efficient solar trackers for commercial
PV fields. Furthermore, the safety, lightweightness, simple control, and
low cost of these actuators makes them in particularly interesting for con-
structing soft arms and soft legged robots for applications in real-world
environments, such as for human-safe robot interaction or locomotion over
rough terrains. Due to the inherent compliance, the control complexity
of locomotion over rough terrains could be reduced, allowing for more
feedforward-like control. Finally, beside the low mechanical impendance
and inherent compliance, the pressure-based feedback control allows for
detection of external impact and depressurising the actuator immediately,
thus further reducing the risk of human injury.
5.9 appendix a. system overview
The system and experiment setup consist of numerous elements (Fig. X). We
present the details of it in Fig. NI CompactRIO real-time controller(1) is the
main controller of the system. It runs the controlling algorithm and governs
the system states. NI CompactRIO communicates with other controlling
devices through LAN infrastructure using Ethernet router(3). First, it ex-
changes information with PC(2), which provides user interface for system
monitoring and control. Next, NI CompactRIO communicates with two
Raspberry PI devices(4)(15). One Raspberry PI receives IMU(6) measure-
ments, process raw data and returns IMU angles to the NI CompactRIO.
The other Raspberry PI, receives measurements from load cell(14), process
them and returns force values to main controller. The second Raspberry
PI(15) sends motor movement references to Arduino Uno(18), which runs
step motor(17) control algorithm. Step motor shifts load cell vertically using
mechanical belt(13) and causes different load values. Metal string(8) con-
nects PV panel(5) to the load cell. The metal string goes through guiding
ring(9) in order to have perpendicular forces to the load cell. NI Com-
pactRIO directly controls individual chamber valves(10) as well as pressure
IN/OUT valves (12). All valves have purpose to open/close pneumatic
lines between hybrid soft-hard actuator(7) and air compressor(16) which
provides necessary high pressure in the system. In order to measure pres-
sure in chambers, a pressure sensor is used and connected to the main NI
CompactRIO controller.
5.10 appendix b. fabrication of 2-dof joints 113
Figure 5.18: (1) NI CompactRIO real-time controller, (2) Personal computer, (3)
Ethernet router, (4) Raspberry PI for obtaining angle measuremetns
from the IMU sensor and forwarding it to the NI CompactRIO con-
troller, (5) Photovoltaic panel, (6) Inertial measurement unit (IMU),
(7) Hybrid soft-hard actuator, (8) Metal connecting string, (9) Guid-
ing ring, (10) Valves for individual chambers, (11) Pressure sensor,
(12) Pressure IN/OUT valve, (13) Mechanical belt, (14) Load cell,
(15) Raspberry PI for controlling the step motor, (16) Air compressor,
(17) Step motor, and (18) Arduino Uno
5.10 appendix b. fabrication of 2-dof joints
From the three types of mechanical joints that give the hybrid actuator
its rigidity, only one can be found as an off-the-shelf component, namely
the flexible shaft. It is composed of multiple layers of spiralled spring
wire, coiled up in opposite directions on adjacent layers. This construction
ensures that the shaft does not expand or collapse in itself radially, thus
allowing the transmission of torsion moments in both directions. Axially,
the shaft can present a slight expansion under tension forces, which fits
better to the expansion behaviour of the basic soft-material-only actuator.
The ICU joint is a modified version of a universal joint, where the bearing
cross is reduced to only one axis of rotation, allowing the design of slender
shafts with high torque transmission capabilities. To achieve a similar
behaviour of a conventional universal joint, our design uses three links and
two rotation axes oriented perpendicular. In order to achieve a mechanical
motion that matches closer the continuous bending of the soft actuator, we
added two more links, resulting in total of four rotational axes oriented
alternatively at 0◦ and 90◦ . The forces are not transmitted only through
the rotation pin, but also through the direct interlocking of the chain links,
giving the very thin ICU joint a superior torque transmission compared to
standard universal joint with a bearing cross of that size. The ICU was only
constructed as a prototype, conventionally milled from a hexagonal SW8
profile and assembled with steel rivets.
The OU joint is conceptually very similar to the ICU, but the structural
material is placed on the outside, around an empty core - where we place
the actuator. The two rotational axes, oriented at 0◦ and 90◦ , are placed
at the extremes of the joint in order to avoid collision with the inflating
(and bending) actuator. For this, the link between those axes (what would
be the bearing cross of a universal joint) has a very specific wave shape
that maximizes the range of motion. Although this construction seems
rather complex, the availability of laser sheet metal cutting and 3D CNC
laser cutting enabled an easy, fast and cost-efficient production of these
OU joints. The upper and lower components were laser cut from sheets
1.5mm stainless steel and the two wings for the rotation pin were bent 90◦ .
The middle link was designed to be cut on a 3D CNC laser directly from
a piece of stainless steel pipe. This method was preferred over the regular
2D laser cutting and bending, as it is two to three times more cost efficient
due to the one-step production and the possibility to stack multiple links
on a single pipe, thus minimizing material waste. Finally, the pieces were
assembled manually with steel rivets.
CONCLUSION
6
6.1 summary of results
This thesis is based on the hypothesis that an adaptive photovoltaic building

envelope can be reliably actuated using soft-material actuators. To test
this hypothesis, I selected pneumatically-driven elastomeric actuators as
a promising type of soft actuators for this purpose, and I envisioned and
tested several different actuator designs.
I first presented the two-axis actuator with three cylindrical chambers
radially distributed around a central core. I developed a basic pneumatic
control system for it and used an inertial measurement unit to measure the
PV panel orientation. Using this initial setup I successfully demonstrated
solar tracking on a day with a clear sky. However, this design showed
several limitations. It was fabricated using the PneuNets approach [23].
This approach is very popular in the community, but at higher pressures, it
suffers from delamination of layers glued together.
I then presented a novel method for fast and precise manufacturing
of elastomeric actuators with a moderate complexity of fluidic pathways,
called Quick-cast. This method shows advantages over state-of-the-art
methods in total fabrication time (< 1 hour compared to 8-10 hours) and
precision (< 0.2 mm compared to ≈ 1 mm). This method enabled fabrication
of a large number of actuators of high quality with repeatable performance.
While a cylindrical two-axis soft-actuator is a basic design to start with,
the actuator with corrugated wall design, introduced afterwards, provides
superior performance. It increases the speed of actuation and reduces the
strain in the material. This actuator achieved around ±30º range in both
axes, and has a close to linear pressure-deflection characteristic, with a small
hysteresis (around 6º). Such a pressure-deflection characteristic is suitable
for implementation in sensorless, open-loop control strategies. The actuator
achieved 30,000 cycles in laboratory conditions without breaking; assuming
4 cycles a day, this is equivalent to a 20-year lifespan. However, while
the corrugated actuator showed advanced performance, it lack structural
stability and variable stiffness.
I then proposed coupling the corrugated soft actuator with a two-axis
metal joint from classical mechanics. The metal joint provides structural
115
116 conclusion
stability to the soft actuator, thus enabling its more precise and controlled
movements, higher forces, and variable stiffness, while all the advantages
of pneumatically-driven elastomeric actuators are retained. The chained
internal structure leads to the most versatile actuator that can vary stiffness
the most. Its maximal deflection angle was only 3◦ less than the initial
soft actuator that had no hard-material components. Moreover, the chained
internal structure achieves the widest range of values for the damping
coefficient, expresses the highest increase in stiffness values of around three
times (180% increase) at 1.9 bar. On the other hand, the outer structure
has the highest absolute stiffness over the whole chamber pressure range,
meaning the highest structural stability for the whole range of input signals.
For wind stabilisation purposes in real weather, the outer structure should
provide the best results.
These lightweight, compliant actuators enabled reduction of the actuator
size and construction of lightweight adaptive building envelopes with inte-
grated thin-film photovoltaic panels. In total three building-scale prototypes
were constructed. The first envelope prototype, with 50 panels actuated by
cylindrical actuator fabricated from Elastosil™Vario, was constructed in
2015 at the House of Natural Resources at the ETH Zurich Hoenggerberg
Campus. The second prototype, with 16 panels actuated by the corrugated
soft actuator industrially fabricated from Neoprene rubber, was constructed
in 2016 at the roof of HPZ building at the same campus. The final proto-
type, with 30 panels actuated by hybrid actuators with outer joints, was
constructed in 2017 at the NEST building at the Swiss Federal Laboratories
for Materials Science and Technology (Empa).
I then presented a novel distributed modular pneumatic control system.
It allows the pressure at each envelope module to be controlled locally
by receiving the control signals from the central controlling unit, while
the measurements from the orientation sensor (inertial measurement unit)
are sent to the central unit. Such a pneumatic-orientation control system
enables expansion of the facade to a wide range of shapes and sizes, with
only a few steps required to connect a new envelope module with the soft
actuator.
Finally, the performance of HPZ envelope was measured in real-weather
conditions in solar tracking experiments. Electricity gains of 30-50% have
been reported. The gain in solar tracking depends largely on envelope
orientation, climatic region, and the distribution of the elements within the
envelope. However, the total building energy savings also include the effects
of active shading. Estimated energy savings for an office in Zurich with
6.2 discussion 117
such an adaptive photovoltaic envelope are 20-80% more than an equivalent

static system, depending on the building type. We estimate the self-energy
consumption, that is, the energy used for pneumatic control vs. the total
energy produced, to be about 3%, based on measurements.
These prototypes and experiments prove the hypothesis that soft-material
actuators can be used as a reliable, energy efficient, motion driving technol-
ogy. The prototypes present a stepping stone in the construction of adaptive
photovoltaic envelopes. The HiLo prototype will be mounted in front of a
facade at NEST from 2019. and will be used for validation of the energy
simulation results. It will also be used for testing occupant-centred control
strategies.
6.2 discussion
This thesis demonstrates that the hybrid soft-hard-material pneumatic

actuator with variable stiffness, Hybrid SoRo-Track, is a viable actuator
for orienting thin-film photovoltaic panels on a building facade in real-
weather conditions. To achieve the same level of kinetic freedom in which
each envelope element is independently oriented using components from
classical mechanics, would require the integration of a large number of
electromotors. This would be a very challenging task, for several reasons.
First, space wise, the soft actuator is a 2-DOF actuator and it replaces two
electromotors, which are 1-DOF. Second, the electromotors and gearboxes
would need to be oversized in order to avoid damage during strong wind
gusts. Moreover, the electromotors should be rated for use in external
weather conditions, at least with intrusion protection IP66, which are more
expensive than motors for indoor use. Such an envelope system would also
weigh much more than the soft-robotic-driven system presented here. The
soft actuators allow not only weight reduction, but also reduction of the
actuator size, due to the inherent compliance of soft materials. In addition,
the resilience of these elastomers, in particular silicon rubbers, mean that
the soft actuators are expected to require less maintenance over the lifespan
of the envelope. The envelope at the House of Natural Resources at ETH
Zurich Hoenggerberg Campus was constructed in 2015 and since then has
survived several storms without any damage.
One remaining step would further improve the performance of the hybrid
actuator. A reinforcement in the rubber material or an outer shell which
limits the maximal expansion of the soft-material would enable much higher
stiffness variations to be achieved. I tested the latter approach and obtained
118 conclusion
a stiffness variation up to two orders of magnitude above the initial stiffness

variation range.
In terms of the pneumatic control system, the maximum length of 20 m
with the current I2 C bus buffers has been reached. However, this can be
expanded by using signal repeaters on the bus.
The soft-robotic-driven adaptive photovoltaic envelopes described in this
thesis present a stepping stone in the development and construction of
lightweight, modular, and robust kinetic building envelopes with integrated
thin-film photovoltaics. Besides an increase in electrical energy due to the
solar tracking on the facade, the adaptive shading leads to reduction of the
heating, cooling, and lighting energy loads. Overall, compared to a static
BIPV envelope, this dynamic BIPV envelope reduces the building’s net
energy consumption. The amount of reductions depends on the building
construction type, the period of construction, the efficiency of building
systems, the climatic zone, the facade orientation, and the building use type.
These topics were discussed in detail in Chapter 3. The newer the building
is, the less energy it requires for operation. Therefore, integrating PVs into
facades can offset a large part of the building net energy consumption. The
energy gains from having a dynamic BIPV system can further improve the
building’s net energy consumption, transforming them close to net zero
energy or even energy plus buildings.
When such an adaptive envelope will enter the market is not an easy
question to answer. This is determined by several factors. The two most
important are the relationship of the system’s price to the benefits it pro-
vides and occupants’ acceptance. The envelopes have been produced in
Switzerland and the fabrication costs have not been optimised yet, besides
that of the pneumatic control system. The envelope price can be reduced
by fabricating it in another country with lower labour and material costs.
The envelope cost then needs to be related to the benefits it provides to the
occupants. Alongside the reduction of building’s net energy consumption
and the possibility to reduce the sizes of the heating, cooling, and light-
ing systems, improving occupant comfort might be of greater importance.
Having a data-driven machine-learning-based control algorithm that learns
occupant preferences for temperature and lighting levels, and thus provides
a personalised comfort may reflect positively on the productivity and highly
valued by the occupants.
Occupants acceptance, however, might be more challenging to achieve.
The main criticism of the envelope at the House of Nature Resources is its
6.3 outlook 119
lack of transparency. This has been improved in the design for the NEST
building by having a large spread between the panels.
Finally, a decisive criterion for a potential buyer is likely to be the overall
benefit it creates for the user. The system can provide a unique combination
of energy saving, autonomous operation for maximizing solar energy har-
vesting during the day, storage of excess energy in a battery, and provision
of adaptive personalised comfort.
The promising next steps are testing the latest envelope prototype within
a real-building setting, in front of an office window. This will enable testing
of control strategies for maximising the energy gains and testing of vari-
ous occupant-envelope interaction means and data-driven learning-based
control strategies. Further, architects can also program open-loop demo
modes of the envelope, to create particular building expressions, not only
by quickly transitioning between static states, but also creating dynamic
expression.
6.3 outlook
Besides solar tracking on a building facade, the hybrid actuator can be

used for a range of applications in the robotics domain. It can be used
as a compact 2-DOF variable stiffness drive for lightweight and safe soft-
robotic arms and soft-robotic legged robots for applications in real-world,
natural environments, such as human-safe robot interaction and locomotion
over rough terrains. Due to the joint’s inherent compliance, the control
complexity of locomotion over rough terrains could be reduced, allowing
feedforward control. Also, besides the low mechanical impedance and
inherent compliance, the pressure-based feedback control allows detection
of external impacts and immediate depressurisation of the actuator, thus
further reducing the risk of human injury.
If the actuator is downscaled, it can be used for grippers with variable
stiffness and minimally invasive surgery manipulators with variable stiff-
ness.
Finally, if scaled up, these actuators could be used as cost-efficient solar
trackers for commercial PV fields.
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control of a soft-actuated modular manipulator in 2016 IEEE International
Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (2016), 4997.
132 bibliography
123. Svetozarevic, B., Begle, M., Caranovic, S., Nagy, Z. & Schlueter, A.
Quick-cast: A method for fast and precise mass production of fluid-
driven elastomeric soft actuators. Extreme Mechanics Letters (under
review) (2018).
124. Franklin, G. F., Powell, J. D., Emami-Naeini, A. & Powell, J. D. Feedback
control of dynamic systems (Addison-Wesley Reading, MA, 1994).
125. Inman, D. J. & Singh, R. C. Engineering vibration (Prentice Hall Engle-
wood Cliffs, NJ, 1994).
126. Baumgart, F. Stiffness-an unknown world of mechanical science?
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127. Chawla, K. K. & Meyers, M. Mechanical behavior of materials (Prentice
Hall, 1999).
128. Bishop, C. M. Pattern recognition and machine learning (springer, 2006).
129. Lange, K. Optimization (Springer-Verlag New York, 2013).
130. Haugen, F. Basic Dynamics and Control (2009).
C U R R I C U L U M V I TA E
personal data
Name Bratislav Svetozarevic

Date of Birth April 02, 1985
Place of Birth Belgrade, Serbia
Citizen of Serbia
education
2004 – 2008 Faculty of Electrical Engineering,

University of Belgrade
Degree: Dipl.-Ing. of Electrical Engineering
2008 – 2010 Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
University of Belgrade
Degree: MSc Master of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science
experience
2010 – 2012 Researcher

Automatic Control Laboratory, ETH Zurich,
Zurich, Switzerland
2012 – 2013 R&D Mechatronic Engineer
Enexra Tools GmbH / Siltectra GmbH,
Zurich, Switzerland
133
P U B L I C AT I O N S
Articles in peer-reviewed journals:

1. Svetozarevic, B., Begle, M., Jayathissa, P., Caranovic, S., Shepherd, R. F., Hischier, I.,
Nagy, Z., Hofer, J. & Schlueter, A. Soft robotic driven kinetic photovoltaic building
envelope for adaptive energy and comfort management. Nature energy (under review)
(2018).
2. Svetozarevic, B., Begle, M., Caranovic, S., Nagy, Z. & Schlueter, A. Quick-cast: A method
for fast and precise scalable production of fluid-driven elastomeric soft actuators.
Extreme Mechanics Letters (under review) (2018).
3. Svetozarevic, B., Stojanovic, N., Begle, M., Caranovic, S., Nagy, Z. & Schlueter, A.
Coupling of hard and soft robotics: Hybrid metal-elastomeric 2-DOF pneumatic
actuator with variable stiffness. Soft robotics (under review) (2018).
Conference contributions:
4. Svetozarevic, B., Hofer, J., Hischier, I. & Schlüter, A. Flexible Pneumatic Actuator for PV
Solar Tracking Applications in Proceedings of the EU PVSEC (2017).
5. Svetozarevic, B., Nagy, Z., Hofer, J., Jacob, D., Begle, M., Chatzi, E. & Schlueter, A. SoRo-
Track: a two-axis soft robotic platform for solar tracking and building-integrated photovoltaic
applications in IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (2016).
6. Svetozarevic, B., Nagy, Z., Rossi, D. & Schlueter, A. Experimental Characterization of a
2-DOF Soft Robotic Platform for Architectural Applications in Robotics: Science and Systems,
Workshop on Advances on Soft Robotics (RSS), Berkeley, CA, USA (2014).
Patents:
7. Svetozarevic, B., Schlueter, A., Begle, M., Jayathissa, P. & Caranovic, S. Hybrid hard-
soft-material pneumatic actuator with adjustable mechanical impedance European patent,
EP17201677.6. (2017).
? Awarded: Spark Award 2018 for Top 20 patents at ETH Zurich (out of 86 filed in 2017).
Technical reports:
8. Svetozarevic, B., Lydon, G., Nagy, Z. & Schlueter, A. HiLo Home Automation Research
Platform Architecture and Building Systems, ETH Zurich. (2016).
135
C O N T R I B U T E D T O P U B L I C AT I O N S
Articles in peer-reviewed journals:

1. Nagy, Z., Svetozarevic, B., Jayathissa, P., Begle, M., Hofer, J., Lydon, G., Willmann, A.
& Schlueter, A. The Adaptive Solar Facade: From concept to prototypes. Frontiers of
Architectural Research 5, 143 (2016).
2. Lydon, G., Hofer, J., Svetozarevic, B., Nagy, Z. & Schlueter, A. Coupling energy systems
with lightweight structures for a net plus energy building. Applied Energy 189, 310
(2017).
3. Block, P., Schlueter, A., Veenendaal, D., Bakker, J., Begle, M., Hofer, J., Jayathissa, P.,
Lydon, G., Maxwell, I., Mendez Echenagucia, T., Nagy, Z., Pigram, D., Svetozarevic,
B., Torsing, R., Verbeek, J. & Willmann, A. NEST HiLo: Research & innovation unit
for lightweight construction and building systems integration. Journal of Building
Engineering. under review (2017).
4. Powell, D., Jayathissa, P., Svetozarevic, B. & Schlueter, A. A Reflective Adaptive Solar
Façade for Multi-Building Energy and Comfort Management. Energy and Buildings
(2018).
Conference contributions:
5. Hofer, J., Svetozarevic, B., Nagy, Z. & Schlüter, A. DC building networks and local
storage for BIPV integration in Proceedings of International Conference CISBAT 2015 Future
Buildings and Districts Sustainability from Nano to Urban Scale (2015), 681.
6. Jayathissa, P., Caranovic, S., Begle, M., Svetozarevic, B., Hofer, J., Nagy, Z. & Arno, S.
Structural and Architectural Integration of Adaptive Photovoltaic Modules in Proceedings of
the Advanced Building Skins (Advanced Building Skins GmbH, 2016), C6.
7. Hofer, J., Svetozarevic, B. & Schlueter, A. Hybrid AC/DC building microgrid for solar PV
and battery storage integration in DC Microgrids (ICDCM), 2017 IEEE Second International
Conference on (2017), 188.
137

Thesis ETH Zurich 25379 SoftRoboticFacades

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Research Collection

Soft-Robotic-Driven Adaptive Photovoltaic Building Envelopes

A dissertation submitted to attain the degree of

MSc. El. Eng., University of Belgrade

accepted on the recommendation of

It may be true, that men, who are mere

Current building envelopes are predominantly static, manually operated,

Im Gegensatz zu gängigen überwiegend statischen und manuell betrie-

My deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor, Prof. Arno Schlueter. I am

frequently used symbols

ASF Adaptive Solar Facade

mechanical components, such as electromotors, rails, pulleys, and cables,

1.2 soft-material actuators

and reduced manufacturing costs due to cheap elastomers, while allowing

1.3 research questions

The goal of this thesis is to show the feasibility of using soft-material-

• How would a modular, distributed pneumatic control system of low

• What is the self-consumption of the soft-robotic-driven adaptive pho-

1.4 research overview

This thesis presents a two-stage research and development process for a

1.4.1 Design of a single-body 2-DOF soft-material actuator with corrugated walls

Several single-body two-degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) soft-material actuators

required, which entailed finding specific thicknesses and shapes of the

1.4.2 Fabrication of soft actuators

1.4.3 Hybrid soft-hard-material actuator with variable stiffness

Achieving variable stiffness of soft-material actuators is considered one

the previously introduced single-body three-chambered actuator (corru-

1.4.4 Control algorithms

The three-chambered 2-DOF soft actuator was used as a solar tracking

1.4.5 Soft-robotic-driven adaptive photovoltaic envelopes

The developed soft actuators (SoRo-Track, corrugated SoRo-Track, and

1.4.6 Modular Pneumatic Control System

Controlling multiple facade modules at a time also requires scaling up the

1.4.7 Energy consumption

Energy-efficient solar trackers consume only a few percent of the photo-

1.5 organisation of the thesis

This thesis is organised as follows.

1.6 contribution from other authors

Several people from the Chair of Architecture and Building Systems at

We present SoRo-Track, a two-axis soft robotic actuator (SRA) for solar

A solar tracker is a device that orients a photovoltaic (PV) module towards

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2.2 describes the SoRo-Track

2.2 design specification and fabrication

Figure 2.2: SoRo-Track with thin-film PV module mounted on a cantilever.

Figure 2.3: Design, fabrication, and final assembly of SoRo-Track as a building

The fabrication process is based on PneuNets [23] (Fig. 2.2c–2.2f). The

2.3 modelling and characterisation

2.3.1 Kinematic Model

where p = [ p1 , p2 , p3 ], and pi is the pressure in chamber i, θ(p) =

Region III Region II

Figure 2.4: Definitions of SoRo-Track angles. a) SoRo-Track orientation in spher-

Finally, in (2.1), A is given by

Figure 2.5: a,b) Quasi-static pressure-deflection characterization of SoRo-Track;

where {mij , nij } ∈ R+[0,1]

2.3.2 Dynamic Model

SoRo-Track is modelled as a lumped mass-spring-damper system with

Ẋ(p) = Ad (p) · X(p) + Bd (p) · ktk (2.6)

where X(p) = [θ (p), θ̇ (p), ϕ(p), ϕ̇(p)] T and

1 Analog Output Amplifier DataPhysics SignalForce P30

compactRIO AO Force Accelerometer 1

2.3.3 Robustness to Wind Loads

1.1 330 1.1 0.9

0.8 300 0.8 0.6

Figure 2.7: Dynamic characterisation of SoRo-Track. a) Bode plots of the SoRo-