Robotic Artificial Muscles: Current Progress and Future Perspectives

Zhang, Jun; Sheng, Jing; O’Neill, Ciarán T.; Walsh, Conor J.; Wood, Robert J.; Ryu, Jee-Hwan; Desai, Jaydev P.; Yip, Michael C.

doi:10.1109/tro.2019.2894371

Cited by 306 publications

(195 citation statements)

References 252 publications

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“…Yet prestrained DEAs provide contractile strains in only a small proportion of the total device area . Moreover, these devices often exhibit impaired cycling and breakdown behavior and the presence of a rigid frame limits the geometries that can be achieved . Recent attention has been directed toward developing approaches that enable contractile displacements in prestrain‐free DEAs, including manual and automated stacking of individual planar layers or sequential deposition of active materials via inkjet printing and spray coating .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D Printing of Interdigitated Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Chortos

Hajiesmaili

Morales

et al. 2019

Adv Funct Materials

151

128

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Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are soft electromechanical devices that exhibit large energy densities and fast actuation rates. They are typically produced by planar methods and, thus, expand in-plane when actuated. Here, reported is a method for fabricating 3D interdigitated DEAs that exhibit in-plane contractile actuation modes. First, a conductive elastomer ink is created with the desired rheology needed for printing high-fidelity, interdigitated electrodes. Upon curing, the electrodes are then encapsulated in a self-healing dielectric matrix composed of a plasticized, chemically crosslinked polyurethane acrylate. 3D DEA devices are fabricated with tunable mechanical properties that exhibit breakdown fields of 25 V µm −1 and actuation strains of up to 9%. As exemplars, printed are prestrainfree rotational actuators and multi-voxel DEAs with orthogonal actuation directions in large-area, out-of-plane motifs.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201907375.cycling and breakdown behavior [33][34][35] and the presence of a rigid frame limits the geometries that can be achieved. [24,36] Recent attention has been directed toward developing approaches that enable contractile displacements in prestrain-free DEAs, including manual and automated stacking of individual planar layers [37] or sequential deposition of active materials via inkjet printing [38] and spray coating. [39] The fabrication of contractile actuators with vertically oriented electrodes offers a more promising approach (Figure 1b). While arrays of vertical electrodes can be patterned lithographically, new masks must be generated for each device design. [40][41][42] By contrast, 3D printing enables the rapid design and fabrication of soft materials in nearly arbitrary geometries. [43][44][45][46][47] For example, direct ink writing (DIW), an extrusion-based 3D printing method, has been used to pattern soft functional materials, including sensors, [48] stretchable electronics, [49] liquid crystalline elastomers, [50] and soft robots. [51,52] While this method has recently been used to print DEAs, they do not exhibit an in-plane contractile response. [52][53][54] Here, we create 3D DEAs composed of interdigitated vertical electrodes that are printed, cured, and encapsulated in an insulating dielectric matrix (Figure 1c). These prestrain-free contractile DEAs can be produced in nearly arbitrary geometries. During their actuation, the stress generated is given by σ = ε 0 ε r (E) 2 , where ε 0 is the vacuum permittivity, ε r is the dielectric constant, and E is the electric field. For small strains, the actuation strain (s z ) is s z = σ/E Y = ε 0 ε r (E) 2 /E Y , where E Y is the Young's modulus. Their actuation performance is therefore maximized by increasing the breakdown field and dielectric constant, while simultaneously reducing the elastic modulus of the matrix. Since variations in the dielectric thickness can cause localization of the electric field that results in p...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D Printing of Interdigitated Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Chortos

Hajiesmaili

Morales

et al. 2019

Adv Funct Materials

151

128

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“…Bimorph elements have also been employed in robotics to generate complex and diverse modes of locomotion. Wood and co‐workers commonly utilize bimorph piezoelectric elements to realize complex motion, including flight (linear, bending, rotary) 120. Demonstrations include climbing microrobots (Figure 6e),121 microaerial vehicles, high speed microrobots such as the Harvard Ambulatory MicroRobot (HAMR‐VP) (Figure 6f),122 insect robots123 such as the centipede‐inspired robot in Figure 6g,124 proprioceptive, high speed quadrupedal robots (Figure 6h),125 and mini resonant ambulatory robots 106,118,126,127.…”

Section: Piezoelectric Ceramics Polymers and Compositesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Materials as Machines

2020

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of responsive materials as machines is in robotics. The vision, leadership, and research of Bar-Cohen is seminal in both invigorating and focusing current-day research activities to develop responsive materials [2] and implement [3] them as lightweight, dexterous, and gentle (e.g., soft) robotic elements. In this spirit, this review exhaustively details the materials, the nature of their stimuli-response, and discusses considerations for their implementation in robotic systems and subsystems.Robotics is a well-established but growing field of research. Sustained progress in both performance and functionality continue to be realized in commercial robotic systems largely based on conventional materials and their integration with mechanisms. A recent example is the Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics [4] (Figure 1a). The incorporation of stimuli-responsive materials in robotics has largely focused on component-level demonstrations to extend the performance of a subsystem (such as a hand or gripper).Stimuli-responsive materials, spanning nearly all classes of materials and size scales, are currently subject to widespread examination in corporate, government, and academic research laboratories (Figure 1b-d). [5][6][7] In some cases, these materials have already found widespread commercial implementation in end use and are comparatively mature. The materials and fundamentals of their responses are summarized in Figure 2. Shape memory alloys (SMAs) and ceramic piezoelectric materials are distinctive in that they are hard, stimuli-responsive materials. Deformation of these materials can produce large energy densities due to their inherent stiffness. Electroactive polymers (EAPs) remain a topic of considerable interest, particularly dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). Engineered systems are rapidly emerging and enabling performance gains in robotics, largely based on pneumatic or fluidic (such as HASEL [8] actuators) transport processes that localize deformation to generate force or produce motion. Soft materials, such as shape memory polymers (SMPs), hydrogels, and liquid crystalline polymer networks (LCNs) and elastomers (LCEs) may offer distinctive functional performance to robotic systems in allowing local control of deformation without the need for complex interfacing with mechanisms. As will be evident, each of these materials has inherent advantages and performance tradeoffs that must be considered in functional implementations. However, responsive material systems have a common obstacle to widespread use: the performance and Machines are systems that harness input power to extend or advance function. Fundamentally, machines are based on the integration of materials with mechanisms to accomplish tasks-such as generating motion or lifting an object. An emerging research paradigm is the design, synthesis, and integration of responsive materials within or as machines. Herein, a particular focus is the integration of responsive materials to enable robotic (machine) functions such as gripping, lifting, or motility (walk...

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“…e dissection of the artificial pneumatic muscle actuator (PMA), along with the body modeled using fiber [209] or braided [206] material, is shown in Figure 8. PMA provides a good balance of actuation performance and power-to-weight ratio, the description of which is significantly explained in the survey [221]. Further examples of continuum robotic structures developed using the PMA are shown in [46,190,191,[212][213][214][215][216][217][218][219][220].…”

Section: Force Actuatormentioning

confidence: 99%

Continuum Robots for Manipulation Applications: A Survey

Kolachalama

Lakshmanan

2020

Journal of Robotics

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This paper presents a literature survey documenting the evolution of continuum robots over the past two decades (1999–present). Attention is paid to bioinspired soft robots with respect to the following three design parameters: structure, materials, and actuation. Using this three-faced prism, we identify the uniqueness and novelty of robots that have hitherto not been publicly disclosed. The motivation for this study comes from the fact that continuum soft robots can make inroads in industrial manufacturing, and their adoption will be accelerated if their key advantages over counterparts with rigid links are clear. Four different taxonomies of continuum robots are included in this study, enabling researchers to quickly identify robots of relevance to their studies. The kinematics and dynamics of these robots are not covered, nor is their application in surgical manipulation.

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Robotic Artificial Muscles: Current Progress and Future Perspectives

Cited by 306 publications

References 252 publications

3D Printing of Interdigitated Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

3D Printing of Interdigitated Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Materials as Machines

Continuum Robots for Manipulation Applications: A Survey

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