A robot finger using electro-conjugate fluid

Author

Yamaguchi, A. ; Takemura, K. ; Yokota, S. ; Edamura, K.

Author_Institution

Grad. Sch. of Sci. & Technol., Keio Univ., Yokohama, Japan

fYear

2010

fDate

6-8 Sept. 2010

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

6

Abstract

Electro-conjugate fluid (ECF) is a kind of functional fluid, which produces a jet flow (ECF jet) when subjected to high DC voltage. It is known that a strong ECF jet is generated under nonuniform electric field, for example, the field with a pair of needle and ring electrode (a needle-ring electrode pair). This study introduces the ECF jet to develop a novel robot finger. First, we propose a concept of novel robot finger driven by ECF jet. The robot finger mainly consists of a bending actuator, an ECF tank, and ECF jet generators. Next, we characterize the bending actuator and the ECF jet generator. Finally, we investigate the characteristics of the robot finger. The length, the diameter, and the mass of the robot finger are 34.2mm, 12mm, and 3.8g, respectively. The robot finger can generate force of 0.28N and bend approximately 70deg.

Keywords

dexterous manipulators; jets; microactuators; ECF jet generators; bending actuator; electro-conjugate fluid; jet flow; mass 3.8 g; needle-ring electrode pair; robot finger; size 12 mm; size 34.2 mm; Actuators; Electrodes; Fingers; Fluids; Force; Generators; Robots; Dexterous manipulators; Electrode-conjugate fluid; Functional fluid; Micro actuator; Soft actuator;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electrical Machines (ICEM), 2010 XIX International Conference on

Conference_Location

Rome

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4174-7

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-4175-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICELMACH.2010.5607950

Filename

5607950