An active-compliant micro-stage based on EAP artificial muscles

Mutlu, Rahim; Alici, Gürsel; Xiang, Xingcan; Li, Weihua

doi:10.1109/aim.2014.6878146

Cited by 10 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The tendon cable route is kept as close as possible to the free ends of flexure to apply a maximum bending moment to the flexure hinges. Of course, the ultimate desire is to use a soft material with built-in actuation (even further with integrated sensing) which will eliminate all the external components and additional assembly for the actuation unit, and the structural material would provide a monolithic body with actuating as well as sensing all in one unit [39,40]. Furthermore, a prismatic channel has been included in the design of the soft robotic finger to house the stiffness augmenting unit.…”

Section: Design and Fabrication Of The Soft Robotic Finger And Stimentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanical stiffness augmentation of a 3D printed soft prosthetic finger

Mutlu

Yildiz

Alici

et al. 2016

2016 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM)

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Soft robotics, as a multi-disciplinary research area, has recently gained a significant momentum due to offering unconventional characteristics relative to rigid robots such as a resilient, highly dexterous, compliant and safer interaction with humans and their physical environments. However, soft robots suffer from not being able to carry their own weight which mainly depends on the modulus of elasticity of the material used to fabricate them. In this paper, we report on a practical and easy-to-implement stiffness augmentation method to enhance stiffness of soft robotic components. We fabricated a soft robotic finger which is fully compliant with flexure hinges using Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) technique and a stiffness augmenting unit made of thin poly(vinyl chloride)(PVC) sheets. The stiffness of the entire robotic finger was increased mechanically by linearly driving the stiffness augmenting unit. The experimental data presented show that stiffness of the finger was increased by 40 %. Depending on the material properties and thickness used for fabricating the stiffness augmenting unit, a higher rate of stiffness increase can be easily obtained. Disciplines Engineering | Physical Sciences and Mathematics Publication DetailsMutlu, R., Yildiz, S. Kumbay., Alici, G. This conference paper is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/aiimpapers/2320  Abstract-Soft robotics, as a multi-disciplinary research area, has recently gained a significant momentum due to offering unconventional characteristics relative to rigid robots such as a resilient, highly dexterous, compliant and safer interaction with humans and their physical environments. However, soft robots suffer from not being able to carry their own weight which mainly depends on the modulus of elasticity of the material used to fabricate them. In this paper, we report on a practical and easy-to-implement stiffness augmentation method to enhance stiffness of soft robotic components. We fabricated a soft robotic finger which is fully compliant with flexure hinges using Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) technique and a stiffness augmenting unit made of thin poly(vinyl chloride)(PVC) sheets. The stiffness of the entire robotic finger was increased mechanically by linearly driving the stiffness augmenting unit. The experimental data presented show that stiffness of the finger was increased by 40 %. Depending on the material properties and thickness used for fabricating the stiffness augmenting unit, a higher rate of stiffness increase can be easily obtained.

show abstract

Section: Design and Fabrication Of The Soft Robotic Finger And Stimentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanical stiffness augmentation of a 3D printed soft prosthetic finger

Mutlu

Yildiz

Alici

et al. 2016

2016 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM)

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Commonly used materials for such purposes are Electro-Active Polymers (EAPs). They are a relatively new class of materials that can act as actuators (McGovern et al, 2009 ; Mutlu et al, 2013 , 2014 , 2015 , 2016 ), as well as sensors (Bar-Cohen and Bar-Cohen, 2004 ; Vidal et al, 2004 ). Ionic Metal Polymer Composites (IPMCs) and Conductive polymers (CPs), which display an interesting performance in both actuation and sensing, are classified as EAPs (Smela, 2003 ; Moghadam et al, 2014 ; Bar-Cohen and Anderson, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Conductive Polymer-Based Soft Milli-Robots for Vacuum Applications

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For the last two decades, the development of conducting polymers (CP) as artificial muscles, by materials researchers and chemists, has made establishing a reliable and repeatable synthesis of such materials possible. CP-based milli-robots were mostly unknown in soft robotics, however, today, they play a vital role in robotics and smart materials forums. Indeed, this subclass of soft robots has reached a crucial moment in their history, a moment where they can display rather interesting features, based on established foundations in terms of modeling, control, sensing, and planning in various applications. The purpose of this paper is to present the potential of conductive polymer-based soft milli-robots as high-performance devices for vacuum applications. To that end, a trilayer polypyrrole-based actuator was first used inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM), characterized for different applied voltages, over a relatively long period. Additionally, the tip positioning of the cantilever was also controlled using a closed-loop control. Furthermore, as a proof of concept for more complex soft milli-robots, an S-shaped soft milli-robot was modeled, using a hybrid model comprised of two models; a multi-physics model and a kinematic model. It was then fabricated using laser machining and finally characterized using its tip displacement. polypyrrole-based soft milli-robots proved to have tremendous potential as high-performance soft robots at the microscale for a wide range of applications, including SEM micro-manipulation as well as biomedical applications.

show abstract