Electrically zipping bending actuators for prosthetic fingers
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Fraai, Tristan
Wen, Jian
Taghavi, Majid
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
State-of-the-art prosthetics use traditional ‘muscle-tendon’ systems to flex and extend fingers. The main consumer complaint is the weight of a prosthetic, aggravated by this complicated mechanism. This letter introduces an electrically zipping bending actuator (EZBA), a soft actuator that fuses structure and function into one component, reducing the weight of a single bending actuator to 2.5g. These actuators use the dielectrophoretic liquid zipping (DLZ) actuation concept, employing an amplified electrostatic force to attract two thin insulated electrodes. Holding the bottom strip in place and moving the tip of the top strip backwards creates a buckle, a crucial part of creating a bending movement using electrostatic attraction. During actuation, the buckle decreases in size and pushes the top end of the EZBA downwards and bends the whole structure. To evaluate the actuator's performance, tip bending and generated force were measured and compared to those achieved by a human finger. The actuator bent to 89.6° (45.8mm) and achieved a grip force of 177 mN
Date Issued
2023-11-01
Date Acceptance
2023-09-01
Citation
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2023, 8 (11), pp.7472-7478
ISSN
2377-3766
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Start Page
7472
End Page
7478
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Volume
8
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2023 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/lra.2023.3317676
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2023-09-20