Publications de Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi

Design and Characterization of an Equibiaxial Multi-Electrode Dielectric Elastomer Actuator

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Bhawnath Tiwari, Simon Holzer

With the ongoing journey of automation advancements and a trend towards miniaturization, the choice of actuator plays a crucial role. Over recent years, soft actuators have demonstrated their usefulness in various applications, especially where light weigh ...

MDPI AG2025

DEyeA: Artificial Muscles for the Restoration of Eye Blinking Following Facial Paralysis (Adv. Mater. Technol. 12/2025)

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Amine Benouhiba

Wiley2025

DEMO: Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) for the restoration of facial movements

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Marc Michel Charles Favier, Simon Holzer

Facial paralysis is a highly burdening condition, resulting in a patient's inability to move his musculature on one or both sides of the mouth. The restoration of facial movement is crucial for enhancing the overall patients' quality of life. The use of DE ...

SPIE2025

DEyeA: Artificial Muscles for the Restoration of Eye Blinking Following Facial Paralysis

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Amine Benouhiba

Facial nerve palsy results in the inability to control facial muscles, including the Orbicularis Oculi, which is the main muscle enabling the blinking action. Blinking is not only important for responding socially to other humans, it is also essential for ...

Wiley2025

Future innovations for the treatment of facial nerve paralysis

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi

Facial nerve injury and paralysis causes negative physical and psychosocial effects for afflicted patients. Impaired respiration, articulation, oral competence, as well as insufficient protection of the corneas may cause a markedly decreased quality of lif ...

Elsevier BV2025

Contractile dielectric elastomer actuators with embedded active and passive structured fibers

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Simon Holzer

Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) are a recent type of smart materials that show impressive performances as soft actuators and that have become new references when developing soft artificial muscles. Implementing dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) t ...

SPIE2025

Force measurements of planar dielectric elastomer actuators

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Simon Holzer

Soft actuators, such as dielectric elastomer actuators, are often optimized with a focus on achieving maximum deformation and flexibility. However, for practical use and integration into various applications, the generated force and the achieved work are a ...

SPIE2025

Reinforced Dielectric Elastomer Actuators: Anisotropic designs for the restoration of facial movements

Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi

Facial paralysis is a highly burdening condition, resulting in a patient's inability to move his musculature on one or both sides of his face. This condition compromises the patient's communication and facial expressions, and thus dramatically reduces his ...

EPFL2025

Elimination of Necking and Aspect Ratio Dependence in Uniaxial Actuators by Continuous Fiber Reinforcement

Yves Perriard, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi

This work presents a novel type of carbon fiber reinforcement that allows the fabrication of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) whose properties are independent of their aspect ratio. The reinforcement consists of stiff carbon fibers continuously distri ...

Wiley2025

Towards Artificial Muscle Implants: Structured Reinforcement of Dielectric Elastomers

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Amine Benouhiba

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are a recent type of smart materials that show impressive performances as soft actuators, making them a promising technology for the development of implantable artificial muscles and soft robotic devices. Notably, they ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2025

The elastic frontier: dielectric elastomer actuators in healthcare technology

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Amine Benouhiba, Simon Holzer

This review presents a detailed survey of Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) and their emerging role in medical applications. DEAs are distinguished by their flexibility, low weight, and excellent biocompatibility, making them well-suited for a wide ran ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2025

An artificial urinary sphincter based on dielectric elastomer technology

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Quentin Philippe Mario De Menech, Sloan Zammouri, Amine Benouhiba

Urinary incontinence (UI) is prevalent and distressing medical condition affecting millions of patients worldwide. Current treatment options for severe cases often involve surgical intervention, such as the implantation of an artificial urinary sphincter ( ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2024

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

Highly anisotropic carbon fiber electrodes for DEAs and their dynamic non-monotonic conductive properties

Yves Perriard, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Markus Koenigsdorff

A common method for creating compliant electrodes for dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) and soft sensors is to incorporate electrically conductive carbon particles into a polymer matrix. However, using unidirectional aligned carbon fibers instead not o ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2024

Investigation of buckling instabilities in fiber-reinforced DEAs

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Amine Benouhiba

Artificial muscles, designed to replicate the movements of natural biological muscles, hold significant promise in the fields of robotics and prosthetics. Recent advancements have led to the development of fiber-reinforced actuators, drawing inspiration fr ...

Elsevier BV2024

Post-Paralysis Upper Facial Movement Restoration in Real Time using Soft Actuators

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

Facial paralysis is a challenging condition, and current treatments rely on invasive transplant surgeries using a two-stage free muscle transfer procedure. The use of artificial muscles is a novel, less invasive approach, allowing faster recovery and more ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.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

Characterisation of Polymer Materials for the Development of an Artificial Urethra

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Quentin Philippe Mario De Menech, Amine Benouhiba

Low Urinary Tract Dysfunctions (LUTD) and in particular Urinary Incontinence (UI) is a medical condition affecting millions of people worldwide. In this context researchers and engineers performed tests on porcine and human urethras. However, ethical conce ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.2024

A Dielectric Elastomer based Miniaturized Soft Planar Microactuator

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Bhawnath Tiwari, Simon Holzer

Precise and robust positioning features are vital need in modern-day industries, particularly in the context of industrial automation within the micro/meso domain. In this work, we present a novel miniaturized planar microactuator with a total size of 40 m ...

VDE VERLAG GMBH2024

Fiber-Reinforced Equibiaxial Dielectric Elastomer Actuator for Out-of-Plane Displacement

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

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) have gained significant attention due to their potential in soft robotics and adaptive structures. However, their performance is often limited by their in-plane strain distribution and limited mechanical stability. We ...

MDPI AG2024