TY - GEN
T1 - A Soft Biomimetic Module of Elephant Trunk Driven by Dielectric Elastomers
AU - Zhao, Jianwen
AU - Zhang, Junming
AU - McCoul, David
AU - Cui, Yanzhen
AU - Lan, Xin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 IEEE.
PY - 2018/7/2
Y1 - 2018/7/2
N2 - Compared to rigid manipulators, soft robot has advantages in complex working environments. In this paper, a soft and super lightweight biomimetic elephant trunk is proposed. The biomimetic elephant trunk is driven by dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) and operates by the deformation of its structure. To realize a large structural deformation and balance the rigidity requirement, a novel design concept was proposed that is using a group of symmetrical driving actuator areas on the surface of the structure. The relationship between the deformation and the voltage-induced strain was analyzed. Limited by the experimental conditions, only two connected modules were fabricated. However, the output force of the two-module device increased noticeably with the number of DEA film layers; with only three layers of DEA films, the force output reached 41 times its own weight. The experimental results indicate that the module is suitable to make a full-length biomimetic elephant trunk, which has highly redundant degrees of freedom (DOFs).
AB - Compared to rigid manipulators, soft robot has advantages in complex working environments. In this paper, a soft and super lightweight biomimetic elephant trunk is proposed. The biomimetic elephant trunk is driven by dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) and operates by the deformation of its structure. To realize a large structural deformation and balance the rigidity requirement, a novel design concept was proposed that is using a group of symmetrical driving actuator areas on the surface of the structure. The relationship between the deformation and the voltage-induced strain was analyzed. Limited by the experimental conditions, only two connected modules were fabricated. However, the output force of the two-module device increased noticeably with the number of DEA film layers; with only three layers of DEA films, the force output reached 41 times its own weight. The experimental results indicate that the module is suitable to make a full-length biomimetic elephant trunk, which has highly redundant degrees of freedom (DOFs).
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85064107290
U2 - 10.1109/ROBIO.2018.8665147
DO - 10.1109/ROBIO.2018.8665147
M3 - 会议稿件
AN - SCOPUS:85064107290
T3 - 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2018
SP - 349
EP - 354
BT - 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2018
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2018
Y2 - 12 December 2018 through 15 December 2018
ER -