High Spatial Resolution, Optical Addressing of Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are electrically driven soft actuators that generate fast and reversible deformations with high power density and efficiency. These characteristics enable light weight actuation of many novel soft robots and haptic devices. The versatility and complexity of the tasks performed by a robot are, in practice, dependent on the number of degrees of freedom that can be controlled. In turn, this depends on the number of independently addressable actuating elements. Currently, the high-voltage operation of DEAs combined with paucity of high-voltage soft microelectronics has limited the number of discrete DEAs that can be incorporated in soft robots. Indeed, no DEA-based actuator systems for soft robot with high-resolution spatial control of deformations has been possible to date.<br/>In this presentation, we demonstrate a new class of dielectric elastomer-based actuators capable of high spatial resolution that can be created by integrating photoconductive semiconductor nanoparticles in the elastomer. This enables local deformation that can be controlled in a non-contact manner by patterns of light. To illustrate the versatility of the new capabilities of this integration, we will describe the response to light of integrated arrays of dielectric elastomer actuators with photoconductive channels, formed from thin films of percolating semiconducting nanoparticles. By using a switchable array of small light emitting diodes to optically address the actuator array, its actuation can be controlled both spatially and temporally. This basic demonstration provides a new method of controlling dielectric elastomer actuators and confers additional degrees of freedom in designing soft actuators for soft robots.