This paper proposes wave-shape pattern control method for whole-body deformable robots containing electroactive polymers. Mechanisms consisting of a typical electroactive polymer gel containing poly 2 -acrylamido -2methylpropane sulfonic acid (PAMPS), named ’gel robots’, have been designed, developed, and controlled experimentally. We faced a common problem called, the degrees-of-freedom proble...

Space technology is often considered very conservative: reliability and robustness are main drivers. Novel concepts coming from research activities, however, are the lymph for the development of successful and competitive new space system solutions. The aim of this paper is to present new concepts and ideas inspired by natural systems with distributed actuators embedded in their structure for p...

Electroactive Polymers (EAPs) have a great potential to provide smart solutions to engineering problems in fields such as robotics, medical devices, power generation, actuators and sensors. This is because they yield some important characteristics that are advantageous over conventional types of actuators, like: lower weight, faster response, higher power density and quieter operation. Controll...

Electrically tunable adaptive lenses provide several advantages over traditional lens assemblies in terms of compactness, speed, efficiency, and flexibility. We present an elastomer-liquid lens system which makes use of an in-line, transparent electroactive polymer actuator. The lens has two liquid-filled cavities enclosed within two frames, with two passive outer elastomer membranes and an int...

Journal of the American Chemical Society is published by the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street N.W., Washington, DC 20036 Communication Electropolymerization of Acenaphtho[1,2-k]fluoranthene Derivatives: Formation of a New Conductive Electroactive Electrochromic Hydrocarbon Ladder Polymer Jeff D. Debad, and Allen J. Bard J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1998, 120 (10), 2476-2477 • DOI: 10.1021...

This study analyses the possibility of reprocessing used poly(vinylidene fluoride), PVDF, maintaining the main properties critical for its use in piezoelectric sensor/actuator applications. The influence of multiple reprocessing cycles of PVDF on crystallinity and ß-phase content fundamental for its electroactive behaviour, was studied. Nine reprocessing cycles were completed and it was found t...