Publications associées à Rollable Multisegment Dielectric Elastomer Minimum Energy Structures for a Deployable Microsatellite Gripper

Additively manufactured stretchable zipping electrostatic actuators

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

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

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

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

Microstrip patch antennas with broad beamwidth

Ismael Vico Triviño

Microstrip antennas offer a broad set of advantages such as low profile, light weight, easy fabrication and low cost. As these are desirable or even critical for a broad range of applications, there has been a large interest for these antennas in the anten ...

EPFL2023

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

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

High Permittivity Siloxanes as Promising Materials for Dielectric Elastomer Transducers: From Synthesis to Application

Yauhen Sheima

The speed of change in the modern world is impressive. Within the last 50 years, many devices and technologies have significantly transformed their appearance, intrinsic characteristics and improved their performance. Computers have changed from the size o ...

EPFL2022

Biomechanics at the workplace under hypogravity conditions

Tatiana Maillard

The main goal of my research is to establish guidelines for workplace design based on human biomechanics: specifically sitting workplaces and handling areas in 1/6G-1/3G (Moon, Mars) conditions. Such a workplace could be used in long-term space missions in ...

EPFL2022

Design of an intake and a thruster for an atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion system

Thomas Binderup Jensen, Francesco Romano

Challenging space missions include those at very low altitudes, where the atmosphere is the source of aerodynamic drag on the spacecraft, that finally defines the mission's lifetime, unless a way to compensate for it is provided. This environment is named ...

2022

Lifetime of dielectric elastomer actuators under DC electric fields

Fabio Beco Albuquerque

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are interesting soft actuators compared to other actuation technologies owing to large achievable actuation strains, high energy density and fast actuation. However, because DEAs need to be operated under high electric ...

EPFL2022

Synthesis of Novel Integrated Actuators Powered by Shape Memory Alloys

Sean Thomas

In the modern age of miniaturisation, Smart Materials, a type of material that reacts mechanically to a certain stimulus, have become an integral part of this revolution. Among these materials, Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs), which have the highest volumetric ...

EPFL2022

Actuator, valve actuator unit and valve

Herbert Shea, Fabio Beco Albuquerque

An actuator (22) comprises at least one actuator body (32) of dielectric elastomeric material and two electrodes (34, 36) being attached to opposite surfaces of the actuator body (32), respectively. At least one of the actuator body (32) and at least one o ...

2022

Electromagnetic actuator design for distributed stiffness

Jamie Paik, Fabio Zuliani

Origami robots characterized by rigid plates linked together with flexible joints have inherent compliance and large deformations. Their low-profile design and folding mechanical transmissions provide substantial force and torque, especially for wearables ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Deformation and Fracture of Tough Microstructured Hydrogels

Michael David Kessler

Many natural materials are structured on different length scales. This structuring often leads to an intricate interplay between soft and stiff components, which significantly improves the fracture toughness of these materials. A class of soft material tha ...

EPFL2022

Highly Stretchable Silicone Elastomer Applied in Soft Actuators

Fabio Beco Albuquerque, Pengpeng Hu

In this work, a highly stretchable silicone elastomer is incorporated into dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) in order to decrease operation voltages by applying high prestretches. Results show that the fabricated DEAs (5 mm diameter circle active regio ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2022

Intensifying space activity calls for increased scrutiny of risks

Romain Buchs

As the pace of space activities accelerates and societies become more reliant on space-based systems, the associated risks deserve more attention. Satellites form a critical infrastructure on which military, civil and commercial entities rely. The services ...

EPFL International Risk Governance Center2021

Shape programmable multi-stable polymer actuators

Bekir Aksoy

Recent advances in soft actuators have enabled systems that are safer to interact with, better at handling fragile objects, able to produce complex shapes with fewer components. However, being inherently soft differs these actuators from their rigid counte ...

EPFL2021

A High Efficiency Pneumatic Drive System Using Vane-Type Semi-Rotary Actuators

Alfred Rufer

A compressed air driven generator is proposed, where the pneumatic energy is converted into mechanical energy using two vane-type rotational actuators. The use of a second actuator with a higher displacement in order to produce a thermodynamic expansion al ...

UNIV NIS2021