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Main Authors: Rauf, Ahad M., Follmer, Sean
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.16803
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author Rauf, Ahad M.
Follmer, Sean
author_facet Rauf, Ahad M.
Follmer, Sean
contents Electroadhesive clutches are electrically controllable switchable adhesives commonly used in soft robots and haptic user interfaces. They can form strong bonds to a wide variety of surfaces at low power consumption. However, electroadhesive clutches in the literature engage to and release from substrates several orders of magnitude slower than a traditional electrostatic model would predict. Large release times, in particular, can limit electroadhesion's usefulness in high-bandwidth applications. We develop a novel electromechanical model for electroadhesion, factoring in polarization dynamics, the drive circuitry's rise and fall times, and contact mechanics between the dielectric and substrate. We show in simulation and experimentally how different design parameters affect the engagement and release times of centimeter-scale electroadhesive clutches to metallic substrates, and we find that the model accurately captures the magnitude and trends of our experimental results. In particular, we find that higher drive frequencies, narrower substrate aspect ratios, and faster drive circuitry output stages enable significantly faster release times. The fastest clutches have engagement times less than 15 us and release times less than 875 us, which are 10x and 17.1x faster, respectively, than the best times found in prior literature on centimeter-scale electroadhesive clutches.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_16803
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Modeling the Dynamics of Sub-Millisecond Electroadhesive Engagement and Release Times
Rauf, Ahad M.
Follmer, Sean
Robotics
Human-Computer Interaction
Applied Physics
Electroadhesive clutches are electrically controllable switchable adhesives commonly used in soft robots and haptic user interfaces. They can form strong bonds to a wide variety of surfaces at low power consumption. However, electroadhesive clutches in the literature engage to and release from substrates several orders of magnitude slower than a traditional electrostatic model would predict. Large release times, in particular, can limit electroadhesion's usefulness in high-bandwidth applications. We develop a novel electromechanical model for electroadhesion, factoring in polarization dynamics, the drive circuitry's rise and fall times, and contact mechanics between the dielectric and substrate. We show in simulation and experimentally how different design parameters affect the engagement and release times of centimeter-scale electroadhesive clutches to metallic substrates, and we find that the model accurately captures the magnitude and trends of our experimental results. In particular, we find that higher drive frequencies, narrower substrate aspect ratios, and faster drive circuitry output stages enable significantly faster release times. The fastest clutches have engagement times less than 15 us and release times less than 875 us, which are 10x and 17.1x faster, respectively, than the best times found in prior literature on centimeter-scale electroadhesive clutches.
title Modeling the Dynamics of Sub-Millisecond Electroadhesive Engagement and Release Times
topic Robotics
Human-Computer Interaction
Applied Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.16803