Implementation and application of a 2-DoF dielectric elastomer actuator

Animals, like snakes, C. elegans and octopus, can bend or elongate their bodies or arms continuously and have shown great locomotion capabilities in natural unstructured environments. To emulate the movement functionality of these animals, a type of two degree-of-freedom (DoF) dielectric elastomer actuator, which can bend and elongate, was designed and implemented. Experiments show the actuator can bend with an angle of about 70° at the voltage of 5.5 kV and its linear displacement reaches 8 mm. Then two crawling robots, consisting of one and two serial actuators respectively, are realized, where one-way wheels are used to produce the friction force. It is demonstrated that the two robots can move forward with bending and elongation strategy, and the maximum velocity is up to 20 mm/s. This research has proved the feasibility of application of dielectric elastomer in biomimetic robots.