Tensegrity structures, architectures that consist of elastic cables and rigid rods, have attracted attention as a building block of robots because of their compliance, lightweight properties, and mechanical robustness. This article describes a method to create electroactive tensegrity structures that employs a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) as the actuation principle. Two different types of DEA‐tensegrities are considered herein: a membrane type and a cable type. In these devices, DEAs are made of an acrylic elastomer (3 m, VHB 4905) and a stretchable conductive film (Adhesives Research, ARcare 90336) used as dielectric and electrode layers, respectively. An analytical model of DEA‐tensegrities is built that guides the fabrication of experimental devices. The fabricated DEA‐tensegrities are characterized by the actuation strain in the height direction. As a result, voltage‐controlled actuation strains of 7.5% and 2.0% are observed at 10 kV for membrane type and cable type DEA‐tensegrity, respectively, while the model prediction captures the actuation characteristics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.