Modeling, fabrication, and characterization of motion platform actuated by carbon polymer soft actuator

Abstract

Carbon polymer composites (CPC) are kind of soft actuators belonging to the category of ionic electroactive polymer transducers. In this work, we present design, modeling, fabrication, and characterization of a novel parallel manipulation system actuated by the CPC actuators. In this system, four actuators are operated in parallel to manipulate an end effector or a platform to generate motion along the different axis. The major advantage of the current system is that the platform and the actuators are fabricated as a single structure using the simple layer-by-layer spray-deposition method with selective masking. The proposed system is highly dexterous and is capable of generating three degrees of motions, namely, roll, pitch, and piston. The initial structural design and its deformation are optimized by modeling and simulating using finite element method and followed by fabrication and characterization to examine its workspace. The experimental results have demonstrated high levels of manipulability from the CPC actuators that are outstanding in the class of soft ionic actuators while keeping the fabrication method simple, scalable and cost-effective. The proposed configuration has potential application in micromanipulation systems that require large deformation in a confined space.