Publications related to Study of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) based bimorph actuators for laser scanning actuation at kHz frequency range

Inversing the actuation cycle of dielectric elastomer actuators for a facial prosthesis

Paolo Germano, Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Alexis Boegli, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Quentin Philippe Mario De Menech

Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) are a type of smart material described as compliant capacitors. They show impressive performances as soft actuators, such as a high strain and fast response. Nonetheless, replicating natural muscle function with DEAs h ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2024

Permanently magnetized elastomer rotating actuator using traveling waves

Herbert Shea

We report a soft actuator that generates continuous rotation of an object placed on it by electromagnetically exciting circular travelling waves in a soft disk. The disk, that serves as the stator, is made of a stretchable composite consisting of segments ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

Soft Bending Actuator With Fiber-Jamming Variable Stiffness and Fiber-Optic Proprioception

Sudong Lee

Soft actuators with a function of variable stiffness are beneficial to the improvement of the adaptability of robots, expanding the application areas and environments. We propose a tendon-driven soft bending actuator that can change its stiffness using fib ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2023

Fabrication and Characterization of the Kirigami-Inspired SMA-Powered Actuator

Yves Perriard, Sean Thomas, Guilain Lionel Germain Lang, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Marjan Ghorbani

This paper presents an innovative approach to creating Shape Memory Alloys (SMA)-based actuators that are lightweight, compact, and capable of providing large strokes. Inspired by the Kirigami structure, an SMA actuator is designed using the Ω -pattern, wh ...

2023

Electrode Impact on the Electrical Breakdown of Dielectric Elastomer Thin Films

Herbert Shea, Fabio Beco Albuquerque

Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs) enable the realization of energy-efficient and compact actuator systems. DEAs operate at the kilovolt range with typically microampere-level currents and hence minimize thermal losses in comparison to low voltage/high ...

MDPI2023

Method for operating a frequency agile tunable self-injection locking laser system and self-injection locking laser system

Tobias Kippenberg, Grigorii Likhachev, Anat Siddharth

The invention relates to a Method for operating a frequency agile tunable self-injection locking laser system being formed by a laser device coupled to at least one optical resonator, wherein a diode current of a laser diode of the laser device is controll ...

2023

Real-time actuation of a dielectric elastomer actuator neuroprosthesis for facial paralysis

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Thomas Guillaume Martinez, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Armando Matthieu Walter, Amine Benouhiba

Facial paralysis is a highly burdening condition, resulting in a patient's inability to move his mimic musculature on one or both sides of his face. This condition compromises the patient's communication and facial expressions, and thus dramatically reduce ...

2023

High Permittivity Siloxanes as Promising Materials for Dielectric Elastomer Transducers: From Synthesis to Application

Yauhen Sheima

The speed of change in the modern world is impressive. Within the last 50 years, many devices and technologies have significantly transformed their appearance, intrinsic characteristics and improved their performance. Computers have changed from the size o ...

EPFL2022

Engineering Absorption for Foil Applications

Sebastian Mader

Light matter interactions such as extinction, reflection, and transmission can be described by classical optics. Dur-ing the past decades, research focused on a novel resonant extinction type called plasmonics that allows for en-hancement of both types of ...

EPFL2022

Lifetime of dielectric elastomer actuators under DC electric fields

Fabio Beco Albuquerque

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are interesting soft actuators compared to other actuation technologies owing to large achievable actuation strains, high energy density and fast actuation. However, because DEAs need to be operated under high electric ...

EPFL2022

Electromagnetic actuator design for distributed stiffness

Jamie Paik, Fabio Zuliani

Origami robots characterized by rigid plates linked together with flexible joints have inherent compliance and large deformations. Their low-profile design and folding mechanical transmissions provide substantial force and torque, especially for wearables ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Actuator, valve actuator unit and valve

Herbert Shea, Fabio Beco Albuquerque

An actuator (22) comprises at least one actuator body (32) of dielectric elastomeric material and two electrodes (34, 36) being attached to opposite surfaces of the actuator body (32), respectively. At least one of the actuator body (32) and at least one o ...

2022

Recent Advances in Piezoelectric Materials for Electromechanical Transducer Applications

Dragan Damjanovic

Ferroelectricity has made a huge impact on science and technology since Joseph Valasek (then a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota) discovered it in 1920, a little longer than 100 years ago. Whereas Dr. Valasek's original research was motivated by ...

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC2022

Synthesis of Novel Integrated Actuators Powered by Shape Memory Alloys

Sean Thomas

In the modern age of miniaturisation, Smart Materials, a type of material that reacts mechanically to a certain stimulus, have become an integral part of this revolution. Among these materials, Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs), which have the highest volumetric ...

EPFL2022

Low-Loss Anisotropic Image Polaritons in van der Waals Crystal alpha-MoO3

Sergejs Boroviks

Orthorhombic molybdenum trioxide (alpha-MoO3), a newly discovered polaritonic van der Waals crystal, is attracting significant attention due to its strongly anisotropic mid-infrared phonon-polaritons. At the same time, coupling of polariton with its mirror ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2022

Fast 3D Modeling of Prosthetic Robotic Hands Based on a Multi-Layer Deformable Design

Daniel Thalmann

Current research of designing prosthetic robotic hands mainly focuses on improving their functionality by devising new mechanical structures and actuation systems. Most of existing work relies on a single structure/system (e.g., bone-only or tissue-only) a ...

WHIOCE PUBLISHING PTE LTD, SINGAPORE2022

Prototype mitre bends of the ex-vessel waveguide system for the ITER upper launcher: Thermal hydraulic simulations and experiments with off-center mm-wave beams

René Chavan, Timothy Goodman, Matteo Vagnoni, Anastasia Xydou, Humberto Torreblanca Quiroz

On ITER, long pulse gyrotrons are required as a power source for electron cyclotron heating (ECH) and current drive (CD). The microwaves are guided from the gyrotrons, which are placed far from the Tokamak, into the plasma by transmission lines (TLs) and a ...

2021

Discrete metal nanoparticles with plasmonic chirality

Jijun He

From a geometrical perspective, a chiral object does not have mirror planes or inversion symmetry. It exhibits the same physical properties as its mirror image (enantiomer), except for the chiroptical activity, which is often the opposite. Recent advanceme ...

Royal Society of Chemistry2021

Movement-Related Cortical Potentials in Embodied Virtual Mirror Visual Feedback

Gangadhar Garipelli, Tamara Rossy

Background: Mirror therapy is thought to drive interhemispheric communication, resulting in a balanced activation. We hypothesized that embodied virtual mirror visual feedback (VR-MVF) presented on a computer screen may produce a similar activation. In thi ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2021

Design and modelling of a tubular dielectric elastomer actuator with constrained radial displacement as a cardiac assist device

Yves Perriard, Yoan René Cyrille Civet, Jonathan André Jean-Marie Chavanne, Armando Matthieu Walter

In this paper, we propose an improvement of a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) based augmented aorta. The actuator is a multi-layered tubular DEA subject to the internal pressure of the blood. When activated in synchronisation with the heart, the DEA su ...

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2021