Flexible Active Skin: Large Reconfigurable Arrays of Individually Addressed Shape Memory Polymer Actuators
A high-resolution flexible active skin with a matrix of 32x24 individually addressable tactile pixels on a 4 mm pitch is reported, based on shape memory polymer (SMP) actuators. The intrinsic multistable nature of SMPs, and their more than hundred-fold variation in stiffness over a narrow temperature range, enables dense arrays of actuators exhibiting simultaneously large strokes and high holding forces. The control challenge of addressing a very large number of soft actuators is solved by patterning an array of miniature stretchable heaters on a thin SMP membrane, so that one single pneumatic supply is sufficient to rapidly and selectively reconfigure any or all elements. The device consists of a 40 µm-thick SMP layer, on which 32x24 stretchable heaters are integrated, interconnected by a flexible PCB and bonded to a stretchable 3D-printed pneumatic chamber. Each taxel can be individually controlled via row/column addressing, and requires 2.5 s to latch to a different state. The active skin weighs only 55 g and is 2 mm thick. More than 99% of the 768 taxels are fully functional, with a lifetime in excess of 20’000 cycles. This architecture enables applications in haptic displays, active camouflage, biomimetic robots, microfluidics, and new human machine interfaces.
Besse adv mat tech 2017.pdf
Publisher's version
restricted
2.92 MB
Adobe PDF
cc6518a90b7f0efa4ab877cd8e964ad6
preprint AdMat_SMP_Active_Skin_Article Besse.pdf
Preprint
openaccess
813.74 KB
Adobe PDF
e8b485dbc02d7c8a970851f36def576d