Animals make use of soft tissues and muscles to produce fluidic motion with superior deformability and adaptability. Soft robotics focuses on mimicking these natural soft systems to produce similar motion. Common approaches to achieve actuation in soft robotics are pneumatics, fluidics, shape memory materials, magnetic fields, chemical reactions and electroactive polymers (EAPs). EAPs are particularly interesting due to their high efficiencies, lightweight design and superior structural compliance. Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), an EAP, can produce large strains, low cost and complexity of fabrication. Performance of a DEA depends on intrinsic material properties like relative permittivity and Young’s modulus. Conventional approaches to manipulate either of these material properties have made use of solid fillers, chemical additives and modifications of polymer backbone, and are generally accompanied with undesirable effects on other properties. In the present work, we demonstrate the fabrication of self-contained liquid filler-polymer composite, with synergetic effects on electrical and mechanical properties of the resulting matrix. A high-k, non-reactive liquid filler was hand mixed with PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane). These composites show an increase of 2 times in the relative permittivity (dielectric constant) and softening of the matrix (more than 50 times decrease in the Young’s modulus), compared to the pristine polymer. The composites can be actuated without pre-stretch with visibly detectable deformations and the figure of merit for electro-mechanical performance was calculated at an impressive value of 94. These ultra-soft composites can be used for applications such as soft robotics, optoelectronics and wearable electronics.
This paper presents a method to provide continuous real-time condition monitoring of track health on an autonomous rail system. We use stretchable capacitive sensors installed on rolling stock (train carriages). The capacitive sensor was stretched between two points of the train with relative motion during operation, for instance, the current collector device (or shoe). Any change in relative motion signals, picked up by the capacitance change of the sensor, would indicate operational anomaly. We use our sensor to detect and differentiate between localized track wear, track misalignment and abnormal impact force. For train systems with a rigid legacy of train location detection systems, we propose a system of RFID transmitters and receivers to be lined at regular intervals along the train track and to be mounted on the train carriage, respectively. We propose a strategy to enhance the sensitivity of the capacitive sensor, and adopt Butterworth or wavelet for signal processing.
We present a stackable configuration of loudspeaker-type artificial muscle module. These modules are antagonisticallycoupled to enhance the delivery of blocking force and speed of deformation. We analyze a cycle of antagonisticallycouple configuration by theory, and maximize the cycle of the antagonistically-coupled loudspeaker configuration using a semi-empirical method. We realize an output force of about 4N for a single layer, and up to 15N for three stacked layers. The corresponding displacement at maximum actuation is about 10mm. We further introduce a control circuit to enhance output mechanical power of the cycle. This work serves to rationalize the analysis, design and construction of soft actuator systems capable of delivering high mechanical power output within a small space.
Conference Committee Involvement (11)
Electroactive Polymer Actuators, Sensors, and Devices (EAPAD) 2025
17 March 2025 | Vancouver, Canada
Soft Mechatronics and Wearable Systems 2025
17 March 2025 | Vancouver, Canada
Soft Mechatronics and Wearable Systems
25 March 2024 | Long Beach, California, United States
Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXVI
25 March 2024 | Long Beach, California, United States
Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXV
13 March 2023 | Long Beach, California, United States
Nano-, Bio-, Info-Tech Sensors, and Wearable Systems 2023
13 March 2023 | Long Beach, California, United States
Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXIV
7 March 2022 | Long Beach, California, United States
Nano-, Bio-, Info-Tech Sensors and Wearable Systems
22 March 2021 | Online Only, California, United States
Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXIII
8 March 2021 | Online Only, California, United States
Nano-, Bio-, Info-Tech Sensors and 3D Systems
27 April 2020 | Online Only, California, United States
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