Low‐Voltage Soft Actuators for Interactive Human–Machine Interfaces

Abstract

Soft electrical actuators driven by low voltages are promising for interactive human-machine interfaces (iHMI) applications including executing orders to complete various tasks and communicating with humans. The attractive features of low-voltage soft electrical actuators include their good safety, low power consumption, small system size, and nonrigid or deformable characteristics. This review covers three typical classes of electrical actuators, namely, electrochemical, electrothermal, and other electrical (dielectric, electrostatic, ferroelectric, and plasticized gel) actuators according to their mechanism and working potential range. For each kind of actuators, the advantages, working principle, device configuration/design, materials selection, recent progress, and potential applications for iHMI are summarized, with the strategies for enhancing the actuation performance under low voltages being highlighted. Finally, the challenges for those soft actuators and possible solutions are discussed.

Artificial Intelligence‐Enabled Sensing Technologies in the 5G/Internet of Things Era: From Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality to the Digital Twin

“…The progress of AI in recent years has injected impetus into the rapid development of intelligent robots. [172][173][174][175] Compared with those expensive rigid-body industry robots, soft robots, [176][177][178][179][180][181][182] usually made of flexible materials, that is, thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) or silicone rubber, have been frequently investigated with the advantages of lightweight, multidegree of freedom, low cost, etc., showing the potential to be further designed as anthropomorphic robots that are applied in the area of assembly and healthcare to enrich the corresponding ecology as well as save the cost. As the medium for soft robots to perceive the external world, sensors with high flexibility and stretchability that can follow the multidegree deformation of soft robots to real time monitor the bending angle or tactile stimuli have been developed recently, such as flexible resistance strain/tactile sensor, [183,184] Hall effect bending sensor, [185] and optical fiber strain sensor.…”

Photothermal modulated dielectric elastomer actuator for resilient soft robots

“…24). Compared to other approaches such as plasticizers and molecular designs that reduce the modulus at similar ranges, their changes are permanent or irreversible 48 . In contrast, the use of photothermal effects allows the recovery of its favorable mechanical properties after softening, enabling the elastomer to have greater resistance against external damages.…”

“…Photothermal effects of LMNPs were subsequently used to augment actuation through photothermal softening that lowered the modulus 48,57 . Owing to the high transparency of silver nanowire electrodes to NIR light (Supplementary Fig.…”

“…Consequently, NIR light was applied to enable increased flattening and minimized contact with the tunnel ceiling, allowing the crawler to be released and advance forward. In comparison to the use of increasing voltage input to increase the flattening of DEA crawlers 69 , our approach may reduce the probability of dielectric breakdown or enable the design of future untethered soft robots with commercial portable power supplies 48 .…”

Design and Control of a Nonlinear Series Elastic Cable Actuator Based on the Hill Muscle Model

“…At present, most robot-actuating mechanisms are rigid, and there is still a big gap compared with the performance of skeletal muscle, so bionic skeletal muscle design is a research hotspot at present [2]. Researchers mainly use two engineering methods to achieve the bionic design of muscles: One method is to design artificial muscle using various new driving principles [3]. Additionally, traditional motor and hydraulic driving parts are used to design various adaptive elastic actuators to simulate the function of a musculoskeletal system so that robot joints show the characteristics of flexibility, safety, and high energy efficiency in the movement process [4].…”