Publications related to Stretchable Materials for Robust Soft Actuators towards Assistive Wearable Devices

Educational Soft Underwater Robot with an Electromagnetic Actuation

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

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

Robot Learning using Tensor Networks

Suhan Narayana Shetty

In various robotics applications, the selection of function approximation methods greatly influences the feasibility and computational efficiency of algorithms. Tensor Networks (TNs), also referred to as tensor decomposition techniques, present a versatile ...

EPFL2024

Edible Soft Actuators based on Konjac Glucomannan for Underwater Operation

Dario Floreano, Jun Shintake, Ryo Kanno, Bokeon Kwak, Markéta Pankhurst

Soft robots are being increasingly developed and deployed for underwater applications such as exploration, monitoring, and rescue owing to their innate compliance, mechanical and chemical stability, and waterproof properties. However, they are still predom ...

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

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

Instabilities in Elastic and Magneto-Elastic Beams and Shells: from Shell Buckling to the Design of a Programmable Braille Reader

Arefeh Abbasi

In this thesis, we conduct a comprehensive investigation into structural instabilities of both elastic and magneto-elastic beams and shells, resulting in a creative proposal to design a programmable braille reader. Methodologically, we combine numerical si ...

EPFL2024

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

Pseudo-Three-Dimensional Analytical Model of Linear Induction Motors for High-Speed Applications

André Hodder, Mario Paolone, Lucien André Félicien Pierrejean, Simone Rametti

Literature on linear induction motors (LIMs) has proposed several approaches to model the behavior of such devices for different applications. In terms of accuracy and fidelity, field analysis-based models are the most relevant. Closed-form or numerical so ...

2024

A cut-cell method for the numerical simulation of 3D multiphase flows with strong interfacial effects

Alexandre Caboussat, Alexandre Masserey, Marco Picasso, Julien Hess

We present a numerical model for the approximation of multiphase flows with free surfaces and strong interfacial effects. The model relies on the multiphase incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, and includes surface tension effects on the interfaces betw ...

Academic Press Inc Elsevier Science2024

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

Scalable constrained optimization

Maria-Luiza Vladarean

Modern optimization is tasked with handling applications of increasingly large scale, chiefly due to the massive amounts of widely available data and the ever-growing reach of Machine Learning. Consequently, this area of research is under steady pressure t ...

EPFL2024

From low-rank retractions to dynamical low-rank approximation and back

Daniel Kressner, Axel Elie Joseph Séguin, Gianluca Ceruti

In algorithms for solving optimization problems constrained to a smooth manifold, retractions are a well-established tool to ensure that the iterates stay on the manifold. More recently, it has been demonstrated that retractions are a useful concept for ot ...

Springer2024

A Streamline Upwind Petrov-Galerkin Reduced Order Method for Advection-Dominated Partial Differential Equations Under Optimal Control

Gianluigi Rozza, Fabio Zoccolan

In this paper we will consider distributed Linear-Quadratic Optimal Control Problems dealing with Advection-Diffusion PDEs for high values of the Peclet number. In this situation, computational instabilities occur, both for steady and unsteady cases. A Str ...

Walter De Gruyter Gmbh2024

A method and system for optimizing design, implantation, and stimulation protocols of electrodes stimulating the nervous system

Silvestro Micera, Simone Romeni

A method for optimizing at least one of a geometry, an implantation procedure, and/or stimulation protocol of one or more electrodes for an electrical stimulation of a target structure in a nervous system of a living being by a computer device, the method ...

2024

3D printed large amplitude torsional microactuators powered by ultrasound

Mehdi Ali Gadiri, Mahmut Selman Sakar, Amit Yedidia Dolev, Junsun Hwang

Here, we introduce a design, fabrication, and control methodology for large amplitude torsional microactuators powered by ultrasound. The microactuators are 3D printed from two polymers with drastically different elastic moduli as a monolithic compliant me ...

2024

Efficient and insightful descriptors for representing molecular and material space

Alexander Jan Goscinski

Data-driven approaches have been applied to reduce the cost of accurate computational studies on materials, by using only a small number of expensive reference electronic structure calculations for a representative subset of the materials space, and using ...

EPFL2024

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

Sensorless force and displacement estimation in soft actuators

Jamie Paik, Sagar Dattatray Joshi

Sensing forms an integral part of soft matter based robots due to their compliance, dependence on loading conditions, and virtually infinite degrees of freedom. Previous studies have developed several extrinsic sensors and embedded them into soft actuators ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2023

Accessible Soft Robotics Education with Re-configurable Balloon Robots

Yi-Shiun Wu, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kieran Daniel Gilday

Soft robotics requires effective tools to educate the next generation of engineers and researchers. Stemming from a lack of universally accepted principles for education and with high barriers to entry in terms of fabrication and hardware, education to dat ...

IEEE2023