A method to increase the dynamic deformation of a dielectric elastomer minimum energy structures rotary joint without increase of the voltage amplitude

Abstract

The traditional method to increase the dynamic deformation of a dielectric elastomer actuator is to increase the voltage applied on the dielectric elastomer. Based on the characteristics of dielectric elastomer minimum energy structures, a method to increase the deformation is proposed, which does not increase the applied voltage amplitude. We found that the frequency and duty cycle of the applied voltage will influence the range of deformation strongly, and the moment the power is switched off, $t_{off_v}$ is a key factor to the deformation range; therefore, the frequency and duty cycle can be optimized to obtain the largest deformation range with an expected vibrational frequency. Two groups of experiments were compared to validate this optimization principle, and the range of deformation with optimized parameters was found to be 1.67 times larger on average than with normal parameters.

Keywords

Dielectric elastomer minimum energy structures soft actuators soft robotics dielectric elastomer actuator

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