• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.12
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• pp.1497-1502
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• 2012

To manufacture a robot hand that essentially mimics the functions of a human hand, it is necessary to develop flexible actuators and sensors. In this study, we propose the design, manufacture, and performance verification of flexible actuators and sensors based on Electro Active Polymer (EAP). EAP is fabricated as a type of film, and it moves with changes in the voltage because of contraction and expansion in the polymer film. Furthermore, if a force is applied to an EAP film, its thickness and effective area change, and therefore, the capacitance also changes. By using this mechanism, we produce capacitive actuators and sensors. In this study, we propose an EAP-based capacitive sensor and evaluate its use as a robot hand sensor.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.337-343
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• 2020

This study proposed piezoelectric ceramic bender actuators for application to small walking robots. As the space where human access has recently become increasingly restricted (e.g., highly concentrated radioactive storage areas, viral contaminated areas, terrorist zones, etc.), the scope of using robots is becoming more diverse, and many actions that were possible only in the past have been attempted to be replaced by small robots. This robotic concept has the advantage of being simple in structure, making it compact and producing a large size work force. The dynamic modeling, using finite element analysis, maximized the robot's mobility performance by optimizing the shape of the actuator, and the results were verified through fabrication and experimentation. The actuator moved at a maximum speed of 236 mm/s under no load conditions, and it could move at a speed of 156 mm/s under load conditions of 5g. The proposed actuator has the advantage of modular additions depending on the mission and required performance, which ensured that they are competitive against similar drive sources previously created.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1601-1623
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• 2015

Electroactive polymers have attracted considerable attention in recent years due to their sensing and actuating properties which make them a material of choice for a wide range of applications including sensors, biomimetic robots, and biomedical micro devices. This paper presents an effective modeling strategy for nonlinear large deformation (small strains and moderate rotations) dynamic analysis of polymer actuators. Considering that the complicated electro-chemo-mechanical dynamics of these actuators is a drawback for their application in functional devices, establishing a mathematical model which can effectively predict the actuator's dynamic behavior can be of paramount importance. To effectively predict the actuator's dynamic behavior, a comprehensive mathematical model is proposed correlating the input voltage and the output bending displacement of polymer actuators. The proposed model, which is based on the rigid finite element (RFE) method, consists of two parts, namely electrical and mechanical models. The former is comprised of a ladder network of discrete resistive-capacitive components similar to the network used to model transmission lines, while the latter describes the actuator as a system of rigid links connected by spring-damping elements (sdes). Both electrical and mechanical components are validated through experimental results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.294-298
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• 2008

The ionic polymer-metal composite actuators with selectively grown multiple electrodes were developed to mimic the swimming locomotion of a fish. The developed method is based on combining electroplating with the electroless chemical reduction using the patterned mask. The advantages of this fabrication method are that the initial compositing between the polymer and platinum particles can be assured by the chemical reduction method, and the thickness of each electrode can be controlled easily and rapidly by electroplating. By using the fabricated actuator with a multiple degree of freedom, the oscillatory wave of the flexible membrane actuator was generated and a twisting motion was also realized to verify the possibility of mimicking the fish-like locomotion. The frequency response function was analyzed to investigate the natural frequency and the damping factor by a mechanical shaker and direct electrical excitation through the swept-sine method. Present results show that this novel method can be a promising technique to easily pattern each of multiple electrodes and to implement the biomimetic motion of the polymer actuators with good mechanical bending performance.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.44 no.4 s.299
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• pp.198-201
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• 2007

Multi-walled carbon nanotube (M-CNT)/Nafion nanocomposites were prepared by solution casting to elucidate the effect of M-CNT addition, from 0 to 7 wt%, on the viscoelastic behavior of the composites. The M-CNT bundles induced by the Nafion polymer were determined to be uniformly distributed for the 1 wt% M-CNT/Nafion nanocomposites. The 1 wt% M-CNT/Nafion composite exhibited the highest blocking stress of 2.3 kPa due to its high elastic modulus of 0.485 GPa. From a dynamic mechanical analysis, the 1 wt% M-CNT had the highest storage and loss moduli compared with the other samples in all frequency and temperature ranges. From the storage modulus data, the M-CNT loaded composites had similar $T_g$ values near $120^{\circ}C$. The glass transition temperatures of the M-CNT loaded composites were $120^{\circ}C$ (1 wt%), $117^{\circ}C$ (3 wt%), $117^{\circ}C$ (5 wt%), and $135^{\circ}C$ (7 wt%), suggesting that the effect of the M-CNTs on the Nafion film begins at 1 wt%. Thus, it has been concluded that the 1 wt% M-CNT disported composite is attractive for actuator applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.723-726
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• 2005

The two major obstacles in the application of IPMC to flapping actuators operated in the air are solvent loss and actuation force. In this paper, solvent loss of various IPMCs made of Nafion$^{TM}$117(183$\mu$m thickness) has been experimentally investigated to find out the best combination of cation and solvent for minimal solvent loss in IPMCs and higher actuation force. For this purpose. experiments for the internal solvent loss measurement of IMPCs have been conducted for various combinations of cation and solvent. From the experiments, it was found that heavy water showed improvement in the operating time up to more than two minutes. in the tip force measurement of IPMCs, it was found that smaller and thicker IPMCs produced larger tip forces. However, the shorter IPMCs generated reduced actuation displacements and created flapping motion with decreased natural frequency. For the design of flapping device actuated by 5mm wide, 10mm long, 0.2mm thick IPMCs were used in the stacked form. Since the actuation force is a few gram-force, we stacked five IPMCs to improve actuation force. To amply the actuation force, rack-and-pin ion type hinge was used for the flapping device and insect (Cicadidae) wing was attached to the stacked IPMC actuator. In the flapping test, the device could generate flapping angle of 15$^{\circ}$ at 6Hz excitation by 2.5 voltage square wave input.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.462-465
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• 2009

Cellulose based electro-active paper (EAPap) is a new smart material that has a potential to be used in biomimetic actuator and sensor. Beside of the natural abundance, cellulose EAPap is fascinating with its biodegradability, lightweight, high mechanical strength and low actuation voltage. An actuating mechanism of EAPap is revealed to be the combination of ion migration effect and piezoelectricity. EAPap can generate the electrical current and voltage when the mechanical stress applied due to its electro-mechanical characteristics. In this paper, we investigated the feasibility of EAPap as a mechanical strain sensor.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.168-174
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• 2012

This paper presents a bending propagating actuation using SMA (Shape Memory Alloy) spring for an effective shape transition of a flytrap-inspired soft morphing structure. The flytrap-inspired soft morphing structure is made from unsymmetric CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Prepreg) structure which shows bi-stability and snap-through phenomenon. For a thin and large curved bistable CFRP structure, SMA spring is more acceptable than SMA wire and piezoelectric actuator which used in previous investigations. A bending propagating actuation is proposed which can induce snap-through of the bi-stable CFRP structure effectively. From this research, effective shape transition of soft morphing structure is possible.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.705-709
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• 2016

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) gyroscopes are widely used in various robot applications. However, these conventional gyroscopes need to vibrate the proof mass using a built-in actuator at a fixed resonance frequency to sense the Coriolis force. When a robot is not moving, the meaningless vibration of the gyroscope wastes power. In addition, this continuous vibration makes the sensor vulnerable to external sound waves with a frequency close to the proof-mass resonance frequency. In this paper, a feasibility study of a new type of gyroscope inspired by insect halteres is presented. In dipterous insects, halteres are a biological gyroscope that measures the Coriolis force. Wing muscles and halteres are mechanically linked, and the halteres oscillate simultaneously with wing beats. The vibrating haltere experiences the Coriolis force if the insect is going through a rotational motion. Inspired by this haltere structure, a gyroscope using a thin mast integrated with a robot actuation mechanism is proposed. The mast vibrates only when the robot is moving without requiring a separate actuator. The Coriolis force of the mast can be measured with an accelerometer installed at the tip of the mast. However, the signal from the accelerometer has multiple frequency components and also can be highly corrupted with noise, such that raw data are not meaningful. This paper also presents a suitable signal processing technique using the amplitude modulation method. The feasibility of the proposed haltere-inspired gyroscope is also experimentally evaluated.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.444-449
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• 2020

I proposed small ambulatory robot actuators using piezoelectric benders. In order to make the motion of the biomimetic robot legs similar to the movements of the cockroaches or similar insects, two pairs of legs in the diagonal direction in the four leg structures are required to make the same movement. And elliptical displacement is realized by taking into account horizontal and vertical displacement of multimode oscillations and driving them by electrical signals with differences step by step, for example of 90° the T-shaped robot actuator showed wide range of speed (From 2 mm/sec. up to 266 mm/sec.) and ability of transportation (up to 10 g with 50 mm/s). Locomotive performance of the robot was competitive to the preceding robots, and moreover, the modular type actuators of a segmented myriapods robot could be added and removed for different tasks or performances.