Low Voltage Electrohydraulic Actuators for Untethered Robotics

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Gravert, Stephan-Daniel, Varini, Elia, Kazemipour, Amirhossein, Michelis, Mike Y., Buchner, Thomas, Hinchet, Ronan, Katzschmann, Robert K.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866909881065275392
author Gravert, Stephan-Daniel
Varini, Elia
Kazemipour, Amirhossein
Michelis, Mike Y.
Buchner, Thomas
Hinchet, Ronan
Katzschmann, Robert K.
author_facet Gravert, Stephan-Daniel
Varini, Elia
Kazemipour, Amirhossein
Michelis, Mike Y.
Buchner, Thomas
Hinchet, Ronan
Katzschmann, Robert K.
contents Rigid robots can be precise in repetitive tasks, but struggle in unstructured environments. Nature's versatility in such environments inspires researchers to develop biomimetic robots that incorporate compliant and contracting artificial muscles. Among the recently proposed artificial muscle technologies, electrohydraulic actuators are promising since they offer performance comparable to that of mammalian muscles in terms of speed and power density. However, they require high driving voltages and have safety concerns due to exposed electrodes. These high voltages lead to either bulky or inefficient driving electronics that make untethered, high-degree-of-freedom bio-inspired robots difficult to realize. Here, we present hydraulically amplified low voltage electrostatic (HALVE) actuators that match mammalian skeletal muscles in average power density (50.5 W kg-1) and peak strain rate (971 % s-1) at a driving voltage of just 1100 V. This driving voltage is approx. 5-7 times lower compared to other electrohydraulic actuators using paraelectric dielectrics. Furthermore, HALVE actuators are safe to touch, waterproof, and self-clearing, which makes them easy to implement in wearables and robotics. We characterize, model, and physically validate key performance metrics of the actuator and compare its performance to state-of-the-art electrohydraulic designs. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of our actuators on two muscle-based electrohydraulic robots: an untethered soft robotic swimmer and a robotic gripper. We foresee that HALVE actuators can become a key building block for future highly-biomimetic untethered robots and wearables with many independent artificial muscles such as biomimetic hands, faces, or exoskeletons.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2306_00549
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Low Voltage Electrohydraulic Actuators for Untethered Robotics
Gravert, Stephan-Daniel
Varini, Elia
Kazemipour, Amirhossein
Michelis, Mike Y.
Buchner, Thomas
Hinchet, Ronan
Katzschmann, Robert K.
Robotics
Rigid robots can be precise in repetitive tasks, but struggle in unstructured environments. Nature's versatility in such environments inspires researchers to develop biomimetic robots that incorporate compliant and contracting artificial muscles. Among the recently proposed artificial muscle technologies, electrohydraulic actuators are promising since they offer performance comparable to that of mammalian muscles in terms of speed and power density. However, they require high driving voltages and have safety concerns due to exposed electrodes. These high voltages lead to either bulky or inefficient driving electronics that make untethered, high-degree-of-freedom bio-inspired robots difficult to realize. Here, we present hydraulically amplified low voltage electrostatic (HALVE) actuators that match mammalian skeletal muscles in average power density (50.5 W kg-1) and peak strain rate (971 % s-1) at a driving voltage of just 1100 V. This driving voltage is approx. 5-7 times lower compared to other electrohydraulic actuators using paraelectric dielectrics. Furthermore, HALVE actuators are safe to touch, waterproof, and self-clearing, which makes them easy to implement in wearables and robotics. We characterize, model, and physically validate key performance metrics of the actuator and compare its performance to state-of-the-art electrohydraulic designs. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of our actuators on two muscle-based electrohydraulic robots: an untethered soft robotic swimmer and a robotic gripper. We foresee that HALVE actuators can become a key building block for future highly-biomimetic untethered robots and wearables with many independent artificial muscles such as biomimetic hands, faces, or exoskeletons.
title Low Voltage Electrohydraulic Actuators for Untethered Robotics
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.00549