誘電エラストマー製マルチバルーンアクチュエータによる物体搬送

抄録

Being soft imparts a functionality of body compliance, thereby enhancing the range of actuation and adaptability to unstructured environments. The present study focuses on the development of a multi-balloon dielectric elastomer actuator to provide a traveling-wave for the linear transportation of objects. The actuator consists of an electrode-patterned membrane with a directly bonded rubber substrate. The actuator induces large deformation using only electric power and does not require the bulky external system which is essential for conventional pneumatic actuators. Results show that the actuator’s components assembled and interacted with each other and could successfully transport an object linearly. Throughout the experiment, the maximum strain was obtained at a pressure of 12.2 kPa and the linear velocity reached 0.97 mm/s. The potentiality as a portable actuator was experimentally validated by replaying the transportation. In the future, this design can be applied to portable small-scale robots and annelid robots with high reliability.