Electroactive polymer gel robots. Modelling and control of artificial muscles (Q1046727)

The main focus of this book is to propose methods for deriving a variety of shapes and motions of such machines, using a particular ElectroActive Polymer gel (EAP). Mechanisms consisting of the gel, hereafter called `gel robots', were designed, developed, and controlled experimentally. It includes: (1) a mathematical model of the gel to be applied for design and control of distributed mechanisms, (2) gel robots manufacturing and their driving systems, (3) control of gel robots for dynamic deformations. The results are demonstrated for beam-shaped gels curling around object and starfish-shaped gel robots turning over. Artificial muscles, which generate force and change shapes, can potentially form a basis for the development of deformable robots. This changes the assumption of robotic design. For example, traditional robots with rigid bodies basically should not hit upon outer world, while deformable robots can interact with the environment gently and safely. Power assist suits, which are consisting of artificial muscles, have affinity to human bodies. Different kinds of intelligence should be implemented for robots with active materials, because they are open system capable of exchanging matter and energy with external environments. This book discusses robots utilizing EAP instead of just replacing actuator parts. Varieties of shape and motion patterns are derived without changing material properties. An original model is proposed by the author and examined through numerous simulations and experiments. The proposed motion control based on the model actively using the nonlinearity of the material, which is unique. This book is the first comprehensive monograph in the world on deformable robots utilizing electroactive polymers with full of original simulation and experimental results.