柔軟電極を用いた積層型 PVC ゲルアクチュエータの創製と特性評価

抄録

Plasticized poly vinyl chloride (PVC) gel shows great potential as a material for constructing a new generation soft actuator. In our previous study, we have developed a contraction and expansion type multilayered PVC gel actuator using stainless mesh electrodes. The actuator demonstrated characteristics of a contraction strain of about 10%, an output stress of about 90kPa and a response rate of about 9Hz. However, the strain and stress are still under half that of the biological muscle, and the stiff stainless mesh electrodes make the whole structure a relatively high stiffness perpendicular to the direction of displacement. In this study, to improve the characteristic and the flexibility of the stainless electrodes based actuator, we propose to construct a multilayered PVC gel actuator using flexible electrodes and evaluate some basic properties of the prosed actuator.