Toward an Electroactive Polymer-Based Soft Microgripper

Grasping and manipulating objects on a microscale hold great promise, especially using mechanical structures made from soft materials that enable, for example, safe operations during microsurgery. Soft robots should be preferred to manipulate micro-objects, but their adoption requires, inter alia, transducers can operate either in air or solution. Ultimately, they enable actuation at low voltage, as well easy fabricate. This paper presents the results our investigations about conducting polymers -based transducers. We demonstrate this material is suitable construct sensitive microgripper proposed illustrate results. Large strains were observed grasping force of 0.17 mN was generated. Moreover, compared previous work, we show fabrication process downscaled while preserving behavior both sensing modes. The macroscale models obtained are still valid sensing.