Robotic Materials

A Lesson from Plants: High‐Speed Soft Robotic Actuators

2020

Article

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Rapid energy-efficient movements are one of nature's greatest developments. Mechanisms like snap-buckling allow plants like the Venus flytrap to close the terminal lobes of their leaves at barely perceptible speed. Here, a soft balloon actuator is presented, which is inspired by such mechanical instabilities and creates safe, giant, and fast deformations. The basic design comprises two inflated elastomer membranes pneumatically coupled by a pressurized chamber of suitable volume. The high-speed actuation of a rubber balloon in a state close to the verge of mechanical instability is remotely triggered by a voltage-controlled dielectric elastomer membrane. This method spatially separates electrically active and passive parts, and thereby averts electrical breakdown resulting from the drastic thinning of an electroactive membrane during large expansion. Bistable operation with small and large volumes of the rubber balloon is demonstrated, achieving large volume changes of 1398% and a high-speed area change rate of 2600 cm2 s−1. The presented combination of fast response time with large deformation and safe handling are central aspects for a new generation of soft bio-inspired robots and can help pave the way for applications ranging from haptic displays to soft grippers and high-speed sorting machines.

Author(s): Richard Baumgartner and Alexander Kogler and Josef M Stadlbauer and Choon Chiang Foo and Rainer Kaltseis and Melanie Baumgartner and Guoyong Mao and Christoph Keplinger and Soo Jin Adrian Koh and Nikita Arnold and Zhigang Suo and Martin Kaltenbrunner and Siegfried Bauer
Journal: Advanced Materials
Volume: 7
Number (issue): 5
Pages: 1903391
Year: 2020
Month: March
Department(s): Robotic Materials
Bibtex Type: Article (article)
Paper Type: Journal
DOI: 10.1002/advs.201903391
URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.201903391
Additional (custom) Fields:
acknowledgements: R.B. and A.K. contributed equally to this work. This work was supported by the ERC Starting Grant “GEL-SYS” under grant agreement no. 757931 and startup funding of the LIT (Linz Institute of Technology) “Soft Electronics Laboratory” under grant no. LIT013144001SEL. M.B. received support from Borealis and the Borealis Social Scholarship, VDI and the Dr. Maria Schaumayer Stiftung. This article is part of the Advanced Science 5th anniversary interdisciplinary article series, in which the journal's executive advisory board members highlight top research in their fields.

BibTex 

@article{Keplinger20-AM-SoftRobots,
  title = {A Lesson from Plants: High‐Speed Soft Robotic Actuators},
  author = {Baumgartner, Richard and Kogler, Alexander and Stadlbauer, Josef M and Foo, Choon Chiang and Kaltseis, Rainer and Baumgartner, Melanie and Mao, Guoyong and Keplinger, Christoph and Koh, Soo Jin Adrian and Arnold, Nikita and Suo, Zhigang and Kaltenbrunner, Martin and Bauer, Siegfried},
  journal = {Advanced Materials},
  volume = {7},
  number = {5},
  pages = {1903391},
  month = mar,
  year = {2020},
  doi = {10.1002/advs.201903391},
  url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.201903391},
  month_numeric = {3}
}