A thin membrane artificial muscle rotary motor

Anderson, Iain A.; Hale, Thom; Gisby, Todd; Inamura, Tokushu; McKay, Thomas; O’Brien, Benjamin; Walbran, Scott; Calius, Emilio P.

doi:10.1007/s00339-009-5434-5

Cited by 118 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…64 Rotary actuation has also been produced using antagonistically coupled DE radially arranged within the same membrane, as demonstrated by Anderson et al whose multi-phase actuators imparted rotary motion through an orbiting gear drive 65 or crank. 66 Further development on the orbiting gear motor led to a breakthrough that enabled a multi-DOF actuator (Fig. 14).…”

Section: Multi-degree-of-freedom De Actuationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-functional dielectric elastomer artificial muscles for soft and smart machines

Anderson

Gisby²,

McKay³

et al. 2012

Journal of Applied Physics

Self Cite

548

314

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Dielectric elastomer (DE) actuators are popularly referred to as artificial muscles because their impressive actuation strain and speed, low density, compliant nature, and silent operation capture many of the desirable physical properties of muscle. Unlike conventional robots and machines, whose mechanisms and drive systems rapidly become very complex as the number of degrees of freedom increases, groups of DE artificial muscles have the potential to generate rich motions combining many translational and rotational degrees of freedom. These artificial muscle systems can mimic the agonist-antagonist approach found in nature, so that active expansion of one artificial muscle is taken up by passive contraction in the other. They can also vary their stiffness. In addition, they have the ability to produce electricity from movement. But departing from the high stiffness paradigm of electromagnetic motors and gearboxes leads to new control challenges, and for soft machines to be truly dexterous like their biological analogues, they need precise control. Humans control their limbs using sensory feedback from strain sensitive cells embedded in muscle. In DE actuators, deformation is inextricably linked to changes in electrical parameters that include capacitance and resistance, so the state of strain can be inferred by sensing these changes, enabling the closed loop control that is critical for a soft machine. But the increased information processing required for a soft machine can impose a substantial burden on a central controller. The natural solution is to distribute control within the mechanism itself. The octopus arm is an example of a soft actuator with a virtually infinite number of degrees of freedom (DOF). The arm utilizes neural ganglia to process sensory data at the local “arm” level and perform complex tasks. Recent advances in soft electronics such as the piezoresistive dielectric elastomer switch (DES) have the potential to be fully integrated with actuators and sensors. With the DE switch, we can produce logic gates, oscillators, and a memory element, the building blocks for a soft computer, thus bringing us closer to emulating smart living structures like the octopus arm. The goal of future research is to develop fully soft machines that exploit smart actuation networks to gain capabilities formerly reserved to nature, and open new vistas in mechanical engineering.

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Section: Multi-degree-of-freedom De Actuationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-functional dielectric elastomer artificial muscles for soft and smart machines

Anderson

Gisby²,

McKay³

et al. 2012

Journal of Applied Physics

Self Cite

548

314

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…By patterning the electrodes with precise shapes, they can also bring the charges to precise locations, thus allowing complex structures with several electrically and well defined independent active zones on a single membrane, which is impossible in an electrode-free configuration. These two requirements are very well illustrated by the DEA-based rotary motor from Anderson et al which combine the need for 4 separate electrodes on a single membrane with the necessity of high frequency actuation [12]. Electrodes of DEAs are a therefore a practical necessity, and care must be taken in their design in order to profit from their ability to efficiently move the charges at precise locations, without too much impact on the stiffness of the actuator.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flexible and stretchable electrodes for dielectric elastomer actuators

2012

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Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are flexible lightweight actuators that can generate strains of over 100%. They are used in applications ranging from haptic feedback (mm-sized devices), to cm-scale soft robots, to meter-long blimps. DEAs consist of an electrode-elastomer-electrode stack, placed on a frame. Applying a voltage between the electrodes electrostatically compresses the elastomer, which deforms in-plane or out-of plane depending on design. Since the electrodes are bonded to the elastomer, they must reliably sustain repeated very large deformations while remaining conductive, and without significantly adding to the stiffness of the soft elastomer. The electrodes are required for electrostatic actuation, but also enable resistive and capacitive sensing of the strain, leading to self-sensing actuators. This review compares the different technologies used to make compliant electrodes for DEAs in terms of: impact on DEA device performance (speed, efficiency, maximum strain), manufacturability, miniaturization, the integration of self-sensing and selfswitching, and compatibility with low-voltage operation. While graphite and carbon black have been the most widely used technique in research environments, alternative methods are emerging which combine compliance, conduction at over 100% strain with better conductivity and/or ease of patternability, including microfabrication-based approaches for compliant metal thin-films, metal-polymer nano-composites, nanoparticle implantation, and reel-to-reel production of µm-scale patterned thin films on elastomers. Such electrodes are key to miniaturization, low-voltage operation, and widespread commercialization of DEAs.

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“…DEA devices generally range from cm scale (e.g. compact motors [3], peristaltic pumps [4], see Refs. [5,6] for a review) to meter scale (energy harvesting from ocean waves [7] and airships [8]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An array of 100μm×100μm dielectric elastomer actuators with 80% strain for tissue engineering applications

Akbari

Shea

2012

Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

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a b s t r a c tBiological cells modulate their behavior, express genes, proliferate or differentiate in response to mechanical strains ranging from 1% to 20%. There currently exists no technique to apply strain to many targeted individual cells in a larger culture in order to perform parallelized high throughput testing. Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are compliant devices capable of generating large percentage strains with sub-second response time, ideally suited by their compliance for cell manipulation. We report an array of 100 m × 100 m DEAs reaching up to 80% in-plane strain at an electric field of 240 V/m. The miniaturized DEAs are made by patterning 100 m wide compliant ion-implanted gold electrodes on both sides of a 30 m thick polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane. We report the important effect of uniaxial prestretch of the membrane on the microactuators' performance; the largest strain is achieved by prestretching uniaxially by 175%. Each actuator is intended to have a single cell adhered to it in order to periodically stretch the cells to study the effect of mechanical stimulation on its biochemical responses. To avoid short-circuiting all the top electrodes by the conductive saline cell growth medium, a 20 m thick biocompatible PDMS layer is bonded on the actuators. In this configuration, 37% strain is achieved at 3.6 kV with sub-second response. This device can be used as a high throughput single cell stretcher to apply relevant biological periodic strains to individual cells in a single experiment.

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A thin membrane artificial muscle rotary motor

Cited by 118 publications

References 8 publications

Multi-functional dielectric elastomer artificial muscles for soft and smart machines

Multi-functional dielectric elastomer artificial muscles for soft and smart machines

Flexible and stretchable electrodes for dielectric elastomer actuators

An array of 100μm×100μm dielectric elastomer actuators with 80% strain for tissue engineering applications

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