Abstract
Advancements in software engineering have enabled the robotics industry to transition from the use of giant industrial robots to more friendly humanoid robots. Soft robotics is one of the key elements needed to advance the transition process by providing a safer way for robots to interact with the environment. Electroactive polymers (EAPs) are one of the best candidate materials for the next generation of soft robotic actuators and artificial muscles. Lightweight dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) provide optimal properties such as high elasticity, rapid response rates, mechanical robustness and compliance. However, for DEAs to become widely used as artificial muscles or soft actuators, there are current limitations, such as high actuation voltage requirements, control of actuation direction, and scaling, that need to be addressed. The authors’ approach to overcome the drawbacks of conventional DEAs is inspired by the natural skeletal muscles. Instead of fabricating a large DEA device, smaller sub-units can be fabricated and bundled together to form larger actuators, similar to the way myofibrils form myocytes in skeletal muscles. The current study presents a novel fabrication approach, utilizing soft lithography and other microfabrication techniques, to allow fabrication of multilayer stacked DEA structures, composed of hundreds of micro-sized DEA units.
Highlights
Soft robotics is a new and emerging field that aims to develop robots with soft structures to provide a safer and more flexible working environment where robots can interact with humans and other objects, with abated safety concerns, yet still be able carry out significant tasks that conventional rigid robots cannot [1]
A promising candidate class of materials that could be suitable for soft robotics as well as other application areas is electroactive polymers (EAPs)
It was not until 2000, when Pelrine et al reported [6] that approximately 215% actuation could be achieved with acrylic elastomers, that EAPs came into the spotlight for researchers interested in soft robotics
Summary
Soft robotics is a new and emerging field that aims to develop robots with soft structures to provide a safer and more flexible working environment where robots can interact with humans and other objects, with abated safety concerns, yet still be able carry out significant tasks that conventional rigid robots cannot [1]. With advancements in synthetic polymers, EAPs started to reemerge in the 1990s [5] It was not until 2000, when Pelrine et al reported [6] that approximately 215% actuation could be achieved with acrylic elastomers, that EAPs came into the spotlight for researchers interested in soft robotics. There have been different approaches taken to amplify the actuation ratio through mechanical improvements that can allow the DEAs to actuate more than 100% [4]. One of these approaches is to introduce prestrain to the dielectric membrane during fabrication. Prestraining may have a negative impact on the lifetime of DEAs [11]
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