Shape design of gel robots made of electroactive polymer gel

Mihoko Otake; Yoshiharu Kagami; Kohei Ishikawa; Masayuki Inaba; Hirochika Inoue

doi:10.1117/12.424407

6 April 2001 Shape design of gel robots made of electroactive polymer gel

Mihoko Otake, Yoshiharu Kagami, Kohei Ishikawa, Masayuki Inaba, Hirochika Inoue

Proceedings Volume 4234, Smart Materials; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.424407
Event: Smart Materials and MEMS, 2000, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract

We propose a novel method to design the shape of small elastic robots made entirely of electroactive polymer (EAP) gel. The gel operates as actuators in microsystems and can facilitate bending motions. In this paper, we bring out directional deformation from originally bending type polymer driven by electric fields. The key idea is to partially reduce the structural flexibility through shape design. To achieve directional motion, we designed gels with wave-shaped surfaces. The thick parts and thin parts of the surface are distributed in either one or two directions. We developed a mollusk type gel robot which shows bi-directional motion. In this way, we propose the method to design the desired deformation response by shape design of the material in advance. This technique is especially suited for MEMS consisting of soft materials.

Citation Download Citation

Mihoko Otake, Yoshiharu Kagami, Kohei Ishikawa, Masayuki Inaba, and Hirochika Inoue "Shape design of gel robots made of electroactive polymer gel", Proc. SPIE 4234, Smart Materials, (6 April 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.424407

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