A soft creeping robot actuated by dielectric elastomer

Abstract

Dielectric elastomer actuator showed significant advantages at high energy density, large deformation with comparing to other artificial muscle. The robot actuated by dielectric elastomer will be more lightweight and have lower cost, which shows great potential in field of future planetary exploration based on a group of micro-robot. In this context, a quite simple structure for creeping was designed to make the robot more lightweight. The actuation unit of the robot is made of an ellipse frame which can expand and contract with membrane under electric field. After joining four actuation units, the robot can move forward in a cooperative manner. Fabrication and some preliminary experiments of the robot were presented and the proposed motion principle was demonstrated.