Soft electroactive actuators and hard ratchet-wheels enable unidirectional locomotion of hybrid machine

Soft electroactive actuators and hard ratchet-wheels enable unidirectional locomotion of hybrid machine

Blog Article

Combining synergistically the muscle-like actuation of soft materials and load-carrying and locomotive capability of hard mechanical components results in hybrid soft machines that can exhibit read more specific functions.Here, we describe the design, fabrication, modeling and experiment of a hybrid soft machine enabled by marrying unidirectionally actuated dielectric elastomer (DE) membrane-spring here system and ratchet wheels.Subjected to an applied voltage 8.2 kV at ramping velocity 820 V/s, the hybrid machine prototype exhibits monotonic uniaxial locomotion with an averaged velocity 0.5mm/s.

The underlying physics and working mechanisms of the soft machine are verified and elucidated by finite element simulation.