2006 EAPAD Conference,
February 27, 2006, 5:00 to 6:00 PM
MODERATOR: Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Chair, EAPAD Conference
This Session that is held annually as part of the SPIE’s EAPAD conference is intended to turn the spotlight on Electroactive Polymers (EAP) materials and their applications as well as increase the recognition of their potential. New materials and applications are continuing to emerge and this session provides the attendees an opportunity to see in-action demonstrations of the latest EAP materials. This Session offers a forum for interaction between the technology developers and potential users allowing "hands-on" experience with this emerging technology. It is a great opportunity to see the capability of the state-of-the-art of EAP as potential actuators-of-choice.
This year, this
Session will be opened with greeting by a robotic android head that makes
facial expressions (developed by Hanson Robotics). This will be followed by the 2nd
EAP Arm Wrestling Contest in which we are going to focus on competing among
EAP actuated robotic arms. In a future
conference, once sufficient advances are made, a professional wrestler will be
invited for the next human/machine wrestling match. This year we expect the participation of
three EAP robotic arms. These arms were
made by ERI,
Following the
contest, we will turn the attention to EAP-in-Action demonstrations and we
expect the participation of several presenters including ones from the University of Pisa, Italy; Artificial Muscle,
Inc.; SRI International; UCLA; NanoSonic; and Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT) with Eamex, Japan.
Session Opening: Einstein-like robotic head that was developed by Hanson
Robotics will greet the participants while making facial expressions.
EAP Robotic Arms
Presenter |
Organization |
Environmental
Robots Incorporated (ERI), Presenter: Mohsen Shahinpoor |
ERI is going to use its EWA-3 wrestling robotic arm that is actuated by polymeric muscle consisting of a proprietary blend of IPMC's and SMP's. It is electrically activated and its actuation mechanism is based on contraction and expansion. |
Virginia Tech The Mechanical Engineering Department Primary Advisor: Barbar Akle Co-Advisors: Nakhiah
Goulbourne and Don Leo |
Actuation of a
Robotic Arm with the use of Dielectric Elastomers The mechanical engineering department at Virginia Tech has sponsored a team to enter the EAP Arm Wrestling Competition at the 2006 EAPAD Conference. This team is led by Barbar Akle and consists of seven undergraduate engineers. Their design utilizes dielectric elastomers to actuate a robotic arm in order to mimic the movement of a human arm. Primary Advisor: Barbar Akle, bakle@vt.edu Student Team Leader: Jaime
Schmieg jschmieg@vt.edu Participating Students: Dave Griffiths Heath Folmsbee Anthony Ribaudo dagriff2@vt.edu hfolmsbe@vt.edu aribaudo@vt.edu Josh Leong Erin Lucas Charley Sessoms |
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and The Department
of Engineering Science and Mechanics Primary
Advisor: John Cotton (jcotton@vt.edu). |
Optimization of an Electroactive
Polymer-Actuated Robotic Arm This arm was
developed as a Senior Design project, where the students optimized the EAP
robotic arm that was originally designed by the 2005 Virginia Tech robotic
arm team that consisted of Steven Deso, Noah Papas,
and Stephen Ros.
The composite skeleton was fabricated by the 2005 Virginia Tech team
using Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM). Artificial muscles were fabricated using polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers. The PAN fibers were heat treated then saponified in sodium hydroxide to create the EAPs. An acid bath
and pump system activates the EAPs by acidifying
them with hydrochloric acid. These
muscles were attached to tendons composed of braided fishing line, which also
connects to the shoulder joint and cause internal rotation of the arm upon
contraction of the EAP actuator. Primary
Advisor: John Cotton (jcotton@vt.edu) Student Team Leader: Josh
Oechslin Participating Students:: Joseph Ash, Matthew Degner,
Sara Jasin, Jordan Milford, Kevin Nash, Catherine
Ross, and Brandon Shue. |
The EAP-in-Action demonstrations
Demo content |
Presenters |
Two types of new actuators will be shown: ·
contractile folded dielectric elastomer actuators; ·
buckling dielectric elastomer actuators. |
Federico Carpi, Institution:
University of Pisa, Interdepartmental Research Centre “E. Piaggio,” via
Diotisalvi, 2 – 56100 Pisa, Italy, f.carpi@ing.unipi.it |
·
Dielectric
elastomer EAP demo |
SRI International |
· An EPAM liquid pump based on the new Universal Muscle Actuator platform. · An EPAM proportional valve based on the new UMA and integrated with the new, small AMI power supply · Base UMA platforms of various sizes. · A special TBD “flashy” EPAM demonstration. |
Charlie Duncheon Acting CEO, Artificial Muscle, Inc. (650) 331-2895, <charlie.duncheon@artificialmuscle.com> |
·
Metal
RubberTM Flexible Conducting
Interconnects and Sensors |
Jennifer Lalli and Richard O. Claus, NanoSonic,
|
·
New
Electroelastomers Based on Interpenetrating Polymer
Networks |
Soon Mok Ha, Wei Yuan, Ron Pelrine, Scott Stanford, SRI International. |
·
Recent soft actuators from KIT and Demo movies
of Eamex soft actuators |
Keiichi Kaneto, Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT), 2-4 Hibikino, Wakamatsu-ku, Tel:+81-93-695-6042, Fax:+81-93-695-6042, e-mail:kaneto@life.kyutech.ac.jp, http://www.life.kyutech.ac.jp/%7Ekaneto/ |
|
|
A small scale
demonstrator of a protagonist - antagonist system driven by dielectric EAP
actuator. This machine quantitatively demonstrates the efficiency of the EAP in
a working loop. This demo will also show the operation principle of the AWC
robot from last year. |
Gabor Kovacs, Lab. for Strength and Technology, Swiss Federal
Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, EMPA, |
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