Title
Asymmetric stable deformations in inflated dielectric elastomer actuators.
Abstract
Robotic systems that are soft or incorporate soft actuators are well suited for operation in unstructured environments and for safe interactions with fragile objects. The majority, however, are tethered or burdened with bulky payloads of pumps and compressors. In a recent article we presented a sealed, inflated actuator composed of fluidically connected membrane dielectric elastomer actuators capable of large, repeatable, and stable deformations. Each membrane could switch between two identical volumes, and maintain its shape when an applied voltage was removed. Here we extend our previous work by simulating and demonstrating asymmetric stable deformations. In an experimental two-membrane setup, the membranes experience large and significantly different area strains of u003e100% and u003e550% when transitioning between stable states. With the addition of more membranes, this asymmetry can increase the number of discrete stable membrane sizes, allowing more complex control when later implemented in a mechanism.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1109/ICRA.2017.7989498
ICRA
Field
DocType
Volume
Dielectric,Stable states,Voltage,Control engineering,Membrane,Gas compressor,Engineering,Elastomer,Asymmetry,Actuator
Conference
2017
Issue
Citations 
PageRank 
1
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Lindsey L. Hines1314.04
Kirstin Petersen264.94
Metin Sitti31238211.06