Diffractive Transmission Grating Tuned by Dielectric Elastomer Actuator

Aschwanden, Manuel; Beck, Markus; Stemmer, Andreas

doi:10.1109/lpt.2007.900055

Cited by 57 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Ability to miniaturize: It should be possible to miniaturize DE devices, this will open the door to new micro-applications that already include tunable diffraction gratings, 128 tunable lenses, 129 and research devices for delivering mechanical stimulation to individual cells, 130 to name a few. To meet these needs, the electro-active polymer research community needs to explore a wide range of different materials and processes.…”

Section: Multi-functional Smart Muscle Systems With Fully Integratmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Anderson

Gisby²,

McKay³

et al. 2012

Journal of Applied Physics

559

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-functional Smart Muscle Systems With Fully Integratmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Anderson

Gisby²,

McKay³

et al. 2012

Journal of Applied Physics

559

314

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Our method has made it possible to fabricate highly tunable gratings with silicon elastomers, exploiting their optical quality, low viscoelasticity, and rapid response, despite their lower actuation strain compared with acrylic elastomers used in earlier approaches. [18][19][20]22 The height of the grating, which determines the diffraction efficiency, varies very little during actuation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to enabling large strains, the optical transparency of the elastomers in the visible range has made it possible to realize phase retarders, 14 tunable lenses, 15,16 and tunable gratings. [17][18][19][20][21][22][23] We present here a silicon-based transmission grating with an improved period tunability of 34.4%, which we achieved with an improved design and fabrication technique. The majority of the DEA-based devices reported in this field consist of acrylic-based actuators onto which a separately fabricated soft grating is bonded.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fabrication of transmissive dielectric elastomer actuator driven tunable optical gratings with improved tunability

et al. 2016

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Abstract. We present an electrically actuated tunable optical grating based on dielectric elastomer actuators. A simple fabrication protocol is presented, which integrates the grating with the actuating mechanism both made of soft elastomers, improving the tunability of the grating. The device is designed to be operated in the transmission mode. It exhibits a continuous period tunability of 34.4% at an actuation voltage of 5.5 kV, which is an improvement over reported tunable optical gratings.

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“…Furthermore, dielectric elastomer actuators are emerging as a very promising material technology to develop inexpensive compact adaptive optical devices [14][15][16]. For instance, Aschwanden et al [14] demonstrated the operation of a highly compliant PDMS diffractive transmission grating bonded to a VHB 4910 dielectric elastomer actuator (with a biaxial in-plane prestretch of 300% Â 300%). On their device the light travels through the grating then through the VHB 4910 elastomer, while the grating period is reduced by the actuation stretch of the actuator.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deformation dependent dielectric permittivity and its effect on actuator performance and stability

Jiménez

McMeeking

2013

International Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics

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Diffractive Transmission Grating Tuned by Dielectric Elastomer Actuator

Cited by 57 publications

References 9 publications

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

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

Fabrication of transmissive dielectric elastomer actuator driven tunable optical gratings with improved tunability

Deformation dependent dielectric permittivity and its effect on actuator performance and stability

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