Integrated Logic for Dielectric Elastomers: Replicating the Reflex of the Venus Flytrap

Ciarella, Luca; Richter, Andreas; Henke, Markus

doi:10.1002/admt.202202000

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…9 C, they developed a gripper composed of DE-based actuators and a sensor network. It was capable of automatically detecting when an object was placed in the gripper and autonomously grasping the object [ 153 ]. This work is a reference for the study of autonomous soft-body devices, robots with distributed logic interacting with their environment.…”

Section: Integrated Actuation and Sensingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Integrated Actuation and Sensing: Toward Intelligent Soft Robots

Zhou,

Li,

Wang

et al. 2024

Cyborg Bionic Syst

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Soft robotics has received substantial attention due to its remarkable deformability, making it well-suited for a wide range of applications in complex environments, such as medicine, rescue operations, and exploration. Within this domain, the interaction of actuation and sensing is of utmost importance for controlling the movements and functions of soft robots. Nonetheless, current research predominantly focuses on isolated actuation and sensing capabilities, often neglecting the critical integration of these 2 domains to achieve intelligent functionality. In this review, we present a comprehensive survey of fundamental actuation strategies and multimodal actuation while also delving into advancements in proprioceptive and haptic sensing and their fusion. We emphasize the importance of integrating actuation and sensing in soft robotics, presenting 3 integration methodologies, namely, sensor surface integration, sensor internal integration, and closed-loop system integration based on sensor feedback. Furthermore, we highlight the challenges in the field and suggest compelling directions for future research. Through this comprehensive synthesis, we aim to stimulate further curiosity among researchers and contribute to the development of genuinely intelligent soft robots.

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Section: Integrated Actuation and Sensingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(C) Flexible gripper with integrated dielectric elastomer and flexible resistive sensors. Reproduced with permission from [ 153 ]. (D) Soft 3-arm Delta robot based on LCE-LM coaxial fibers with sensing and actuation.…”

Section: Integrated Actuation and Sensingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated Actuation and Sensing: Toward Intelligent Soft Robots

Zhou,

Li,

Wang

et al. 2024

Cyborg Bionic Syst

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“…Multi-modal pressure-displacement sensor [53] Pressure Sensing [54] Audio-tactile interface [55] Venus Fly-trap mimicry [56] Gesture Recognition Hand Gesture Detection [57] Humidity Detection Hygromorphic DEA [58] Energy Generation Environmental Tidal Wave Generation [59,60] Wind Energy Generation [61,62] Human Heel Strike Generator [63] Mechanical Crankshaft Generator [64] 2.1.1. Application Domains…”

Section: Shape-changingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dielectric Elastomer-Based Actuators: A Modeling and Control Review for Non-Experts

Medina,

Farmer,

Liu

2024

Actuators

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Soft robotics are attractive to researchers and developers due to their potential for biomimicry applications across a myriad of fields, including biomedicine (e.g., surgery), the film industry (e.g., animatronics), ecology (e.g., physical ‘animats’), human–robot interactions (e.g., social robots), and others. In contrast to their rigid counterparts, soft robotics offer obvious actuation benefits, including their many degrees of freedom in motion and their potential to mimic living organisms. Many material systems have been proposed and used for soft robotic applications, involving soft actuators, sensors, and generators. This review focuses on dielectric elastomer (DE)-based actuators, which are more general electro-active polymer (EAP) smart materials. EAP-based soft robots are very attractive for various reasons: (a) energy can be efficiently (and readily) stored in electrical form; (b) both power and information can be transferred rapidly via electrical phenomena; (c) computations using electronic means are readily available. Due to their potential and benefits, DE-based actuators are attractive to researchers and developers from multiple fields. This review aims to (1) provide non-experts with an “easy-to-follow” survey of the most important aspects and challenges to consider when implementing DE-based soft actuators, and (2) emphasize current solutions and challenges related to the materials, controls, and portability of DE-based soft-actuator systems. First, we start with some fundamental functions, applications, and configurations; then, we review the material models and their selection. After, we outline material limitations and challenges along with some thermo-mechano-chemical treatments to overcome some of those limitations. Finally, we outline some of the control schemes, including modern techniques, and suggest using rewritable hardware for faster and more adaptive controls.

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“…Dielectric elastomer (DE), as an intelligent soft materials with excellent actuation performance, has been extensively researched and applied in the soft robotics [1][2][3][4], controllable acoustic and optical devices [5][6][7], energy generators and transportation [8][9][10], flexible grippers [11][12][13], and biomedical treatment [14,15] due to its features of large deformation, fast response, and high energy density, and so on. Among diverse dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) configurations [16], the pure shear deformation-based actuator structure has become one of the essential configurations thanks to its linear output as well as suppression of the electromechanical instability in DE [17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling of rigidly-constrained pure shear dielectric elastomer actuators: electromechanical coupling network method

Sun,

Liang,

Zhang

et al. 2024

Smart Mater. Struct.

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The rigidly-constrained pure shear dielectric elastomer actuator (PS-DEA) has become one of the critical configurations in linear soft actuator design due to its excellent uni-directional actuation performance and convenient preparation process. However, the theoretical analyses are primarily conducted by employing ideal models and lack consideration of the lateral necking deformation of PS-DEA, which has an essential impact on the performance evaluation and optimal design of PS-DEA. Therefore, in this paper, a user subroutine that describing the behavior of the electromechanical behavior of DE in terms of the Gent free-energy model is developed, and then a parametric model of the PS-DEA is established. Different combinations of actuator parameters are obtained by Latin hypercube sampling, and the actuator's performance under the parameters is simulated by the finite element method. The finite element results are taken as a sample set, and a BP neural network with three hidden layers is employed to train the samples and obtain a PS-DEA network prediction model, which is experimentally analyzed to validate its accuracy and effectiveness. The prediction model explores the influence of geometric and pre-stretching parameters on the actuator’s performance and obtains the difference between the ideal theoretical and the network prediction model under various parameters. The method in this paper provides a new design methodology and theoretical basis for developing high-performance dielectric elastomer actuators.

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Integrated Logic for Dielectric Elastomers: Replicating the Reflex of the Venus Flytrap

Abstract: The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/admt.202202000.

Cited by 8 publications

References 37 publications

Integrated Actuation and Sensing: Toward Intelligent Soft Robots

Integrated Actuation and Sensing: Toward Intelligent Soft Robots

Dielectric Elastomer-Based Actuators: A Modeling and Control Review for Non-Experts

Modeling of rigidly-constrained pure shear dielectric elastomer actuators: electromechanical coupling network method

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