Publications related to A Miniature Multimodal Actuator for Effective Tactile Feedback: Design and Characterization

Thermal sensing device and sensory feedback system and method using such thermal sensing device

Solaiman Shokur, Silvestro Micera, Jonathan Louis Muheim, Outman Akouissi, Francesco Iberite

The present invention concerns a thermal sensing device (1) and a sensory feedback system and method using such thermal sensing device, comprising at least one film (19) of electrically insulating polymer defining a global surface of the thermal sensing de ...

2024

Additively manufactured stretchable zipping electrostatic actuators

Giulio Grasso

The use of soft and stretchable materials allows the development of adaptive robotic systems and human-machine interfaces that are more natural and comfortable to interact with. One of the application fields that benefits the most from these compliant mate ...

EPFL2024

Educational Soft Underwater Robot with an Electromagnetic Actuation

Robert Marius Hennig

As demonstrated by the Soft Robotics Toolkit Platform, compliant robotics pose an exciting educational opportunity. Underwater robotics using soft undulating fins is an expansive research topic with applications such as exploration of underwater life or re ...

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc2024

Inversing the actuation cycle of dielectric elastomer actuators for a facial prosthesis

Paolo Germano, Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Alexis Boegli, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Quentin Philippe Mario De Menech

Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) are a type of smart material described as compliant capacitors. They show impressive performances as soft actuators, such as a high strain and fast response. Nonetheless, replicating natural muscle function with DEAs h ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2024

Frequency response of fiber reinforced DEAs

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Markus Koenigsdorff

Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) have emerged as versatile and promising devices for a multitude of applications, including soft robotics, haptic interfaces, and artificial muscles. DEAs are an interesting soft actuator technology due to their high en ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2024

Morphological and Material Programability of a Hall-Effect Based Soft Tactile Sensors

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Sudong Lee

The different receptors in human skin show not only diversity in the stimuli to which they respond, but also variable sensitivity and directionality. This is often determined by their location or morphology, and can play an important role in filtering or a ...

IEEE2024

First Advanced Bilayer Scaffolds for Tailored Skin Tissue Engineering Produced via Electrospinning and Melt Electrowriting

Nicolas Tissot, Biranche Tandon

In vitro skin models are validated methods for screening cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, but still have limitations. The bilayer poly(epsilon-caprolactone) scaffold/membrane model described here overcomes some of these deficits by integrating a solution ele ...

Wiley-V C H Verlag Gmbh2024

Permanently magnetized elastomer rotating actuator using traveling waves

Herbert Shea

We report a soft actuator that generates continuous rotation of an object placed on it by electromagnetically exciting circular travelling waves in a soft disk. The disk, that serves as the stator, is made of a stretchable composite consisting of segments ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

Carbon based printed electrodes for DEAs: study of pad, inkjet, and stencil printing

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Armando Matthieu Walter, Simon Holzer

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) have raised interest due to their remarkable capabilities in various applications, such as soft robotics, haptic feedback systems, and biomedical devices. To harness the full potential of DEAs, the choice of the electr ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2024

Near-Room-Temperature Detection of Aromatic Compounds with Inkjet-Printed Plasticized Polymer Composites

Thomas Maeder, Jürgen Brugger, Mohammadmahdi Kiaee

Chemiresistive gas sensors composed of a thermoplastic polymer matrix and conductive fillers offer various advantages for detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including low power consumption due to near-room-temperature operation, high sensitivity, ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Data-Driven Control Synthesis using Koopman Operator: A Robust Approach

Alireza Karimi, Mert Eyuboglu, Nathan Russell Powell

This paper proposes a data-driven control design method for nonlinear systems that builds upon the Koopman operator framework. In particular, the Koopman operator is used to lift the nonlinear dynamics to a higher-dimensional space where the so-called obse ...

2024

How to Make Elastomers Piezoelectric?

Frank Nüesch, Francis Owusu

Piezoelectrics play a significant role in modern electronics and electric devices. Thermal or mechanical stress on such materials induces a change in polarization generating an electric response, which is the sole effect of why they are so interesting. How ...

Wiley2023

Soft Bending Actuator With Fiber-Jamming Variable Stiffness and Fiber-Optic Proprioception

Sudong Lee

Soft actuators with a function of variable stiffness are beneficial to the improvement of the adaptability of robots, expanding the application areas and environments. We propose a tendon-driven soft bending actuator that can change its stiffness using fib ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2023

Liquid Metal-Based Sensor Skin Enabling Haptic Perception of Softness

Stéphanie Lacour, Ivan Furfaro, Emilio Fernández Lavado, Haotian Chen

Haptic perception of softness is a unique feature of the human skin that relies on the concurrent measurements of the lateral deformation and compression of the skin during object manipulation. This is challenging to implement in robotics because of combin ...

2023

Fabrication and Characterization of the Kirigami-Inspired SMA-Powered Actuator

Yves Perriard, Sean Thomas, Guilain Lionel Germain Lang, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Marjan Ghorbani

This paper presents an innovative approach to creating Shape Memory Alloys (SMA)-based actuators that are lightweight, compact, and capable of providing large strokes. Inspired by the Kirigami structure, an SMA actuator is designed using the Ω -pattern, wh ...

2023

Dynamic control of high-voltage actuator arrays by light-pattern projection on photoconductive switches

Herbert Shea, Amir Firouzeh, Vesna Bacheva, Edouard Franck Vincent Gustave Leroy, Aiste Balciunaite

The ability to control high-voltage actuator arrays relies, to date, on expensive microelectronic processes or on individual wiring of each actuator to a single off-chip high-voltage switch. Here we present an alternative approach that uses on-chip photoco ...

SPRINGERNATURE2023

Size-resolved inhalation intake fractions for particles released from human activities in residential indoor environments

Dusan Licina, Marouane Merizak

Inhalation exposure to elevated concentrations of airborne particulate matter is a public health concern. Assessment of exposure can be enhanced through better knowledge of source-receptor relationships, which can be characterized through the inhalation in ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

Flexible Silk-Based Graphene Bioelectronics For Wearable Multimodal Physiological Monitoring

Ata Jedari Golparvar

We introduce a skin-inspired epidermal bioelectronic patch (EBP) with unprecedented integration of graphene on silk with a facile and cost-effective fabrication process, excluding complex ink formulation. We advance the state-of-the-art by directly screen- ...

IEEE2023

Modeling and analysis of miniaturized magnetorheological valve for fluidic actuation

Sofia Lydia Ntella

Fluidic actuation enables movement in a wide range of mechanical systems, from simple laboratory devices to more complex industrial machinery. Fluids are used to generate motion of mechanical pieces. The term "fluids" encompasses two types of technologies: ...

EPFL2023

Humidity-insensitive optical fibers for distributed sensing applications

Luc Thévenaz, Tiago Filipe Pimentel Das Neves

Humidity is a critical environmental factor in various applications, and its temperature dependence must be considered when developing thermo-hygrometer fiber sensors. The optical fibers that constitute the sensor must have a temperature reference, which s ...

2023