• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.113-120
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• 2002

Electrostriction is the phenomenon that a material is strained due to Maxwell stress developed by the applied voltage. In many electrostrictive materials, especially polymeric elastomers can produce large deformation and force due to their low elastic modulus. In this study, polyurethanes and acrylic rubber with compliant electrodes were used as electrostrictive polymer(EP) actuator. Actuation characteristics of the EP actuators with different physical properties of dynamic modulus and dynamic dielectiric constant were analyzed under AC field. The classical laminate theory was also used to simulate the actuation process in relation to the geometry and the physical properties of the actuators.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.1229-1234
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• 2004

Face robots capable of expressing their emotional status, can be adopted as an e cient tool for friendly communication between the human and the machine. In this paper, we present a face robot actuated with arti cial muscle based on dielectric elastomer. By exploiting the properties of polymers, it is possible to actuate the covering skin, and provide human-like expressivity without employing complicated mechanisms. The robot is driven by seven types of actuator modules such as eye, eyebrow, eyelid, brow, cheek, jaw and neck module corresponding to movements of facial muscles. Although they are only part of the whole set of facial motions, our approach is su cient to generate six fundamental facial expressions such as surprise, fear, angry, disgust, sadness, and happiness. Each module communicates with the others via CAN communication protocol and according to the desired emotional expressions, the facial motions are generated by combining the motions of each actuator module. A prototype of the robot has been developed and several experiments have been conducted to validate its feasibility.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.1225-1228
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• 2004

Principles and mechanism of energy transduction of dielectric polymer materials are well known from the various smart material related publications. However their introduction to industrial actuator applications is limited mainly due to difficulties guarantee controllability and reliability. Most of the previous publications have elaborates energy transduction physics of chunk of polymer while development of construction methods for feasible actuators made of the material is rarely proposed. In the present article, a conceptual design of multi-DOF linear polymer actuator construction that is to be controllable with moderate level of control work os introduced. In addition, numerical models that are developed with a unified energy based approach are presented not only for basic working mechanism analysis of the polymetric soft actuator but for providing analytical foundation to expend the concept toward design of multi-DOF actuator controls.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.10 no.12
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• pp.1271-1279
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• 2004

A new bio-mimetic actuator is proposed. The actuator realizes bidirectional actuation since it is with a stretched film antagonistically configured with compliant electrodes. Also, it is distinguished from existing actuators with respect to the controllability of its compliance. Bidirectional actuation and compliance controllability are important characteristics for the artificial muscle actuator and the proposed one accomplishes these requirements without any mechanical substitute or complicated algorithms. In this paper its basic concepts and working principles are introduced with static and dynamic analysis. Control strategies for displacement as well as stiffness are introduced and experimental results are given to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed methods. In addition, an example of robotic actuating devices is given to confirm the usefulness of the proposed actuator.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.103.2-103
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• 2001

In this paper, we discusses compliant actuators those are made of electrostrictive polymer. Electrostrictive polymer actuators(EPAs) are based on the deformation of dielectric elastomer polymer in the presence of an electric field. We address actual design and fabrication method of an actuator using the electrostrictive polymer. We have developed primitive prototypes of the actuator using elastic restoring force. And they actuators have 1 to 3 DOF, 1 DOF actuators are simple linear actuators and 3 DOF actuator has linear actuation and steering capability. They are simple in structure with lightweight, high trust, force and large stroke. Basic design principles and experimental procedures for confirming their performance will be introduced.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.105.5-105
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• 2002

Digital Polymer Motor (DPM) based on dielectric elastomer is presented. It includes all the supplementary parts for actuation such as micro-controller, DC-DC converter etc. DPM can be operated by itself with the program embedded and controlled via serial interface with PC. The actuator accomplishes bidirectional actuation and compliance controllability, which are important characteristics for a biomimetic artificial muscle actuator. DPM accomplish these requirements without any mechanical substitute or complicated algorithms. Its basic concepts and working principles are addressed with modeling and simulation and the compliance controllability are verified by conducting several experiments. $\textbullet$ Polymer, Dielectric, Biomimetic

• Composites Research
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.242-247
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• 2014

The fabrication of flexible electrodes coated on the surface of a dielectric elastomer film, which is a type of electroactive polymer (EAP), was carried out. Controlled amounts of Xylitol powder were added (10, 30, 50 and 70 wt%) to the commercial conductive polymer (PEDOT:PSS) to enhance resilience of the electrode. To check resilience of the fabricated composite electrodes, tensile tests were carried out using silicone films coated with the polymer electrodes. From the test results, it was found that 70 wt% Xylitol containing conductive polymer had excellent elongation and high failure strains. Furthermore, surface of the silicone film was uniformly polished with various abrading papers to enhance the wettability of the conductive polymers on the surface of the silicone film. It was found that the silicone film polished with #120 abrading paper had the best wettability and guaranteed excellent bonding behavior.

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.429-435
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• 2007

A number of different alternative actuation methods have been under active development for some specific applications where the traditional electromechanical actuators are difficult to apply. Recently, many of these substitutes are trying to employ new smart materials like electroactive polymers. However most of the polymeric materials are flexible and vulnerable so that they normally can not sustain external forces. Although the materials have shown a good potential to be used for alternative actuation mechanisms, no tangible industrial application is yet presented because of the reason. A conceptual design for a rectilinear motion actuator using dielectric elastomer is presented in this article. The introduced design concept might enable to produce fairly controllable rectilinear motions for various applications and the presented prototype actuator system is fully packaged in a small unit and controlled by a standard communication interface.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.10 no.11
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• pp.1000-1005
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• 2004

Many different polymeric materials are introduced fur the alternative solutions of electro-mechanical actuators. Although light weight and grate flexibility of the material deserves notable attention from enormous publications, few of the publication has discussed feasibility study for actual industrial applications. Most of the previous work demonstrated plain movement of the material without delineating any design concept that guarantees 'controllable action'. The present work introduces a noble design concept that provides controllable action and the concept is verified through a modeling and a simulation of the actuation method.

• Composites Research
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.237-242
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• 2019

In this research, a capacitive pressure sensor (Piezocapacitive Sensor) was fabricated using carbon black powder containing poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with micro-grid patterned surface. To investigate the effect of carbon black powder and micro-grid pattern on the sensor's performance, various sensors were fabricated with different carbon black powder concentration and grid pattern density. The performances of the developed sensors were compared in terms of operating range and sensitivity.