Lightweight mechanical amplifiers for rolled dielectric elastomer actuators and their integration with bio-inspired wing flappers

• Main Authors: Lau, Gih-Keong, Lim, Hoong-Ta, Teo, Jing-Ying, Chin, Yao-Wei
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Robots
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/102515; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/18920
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are attractive for use in bio-inspired flapping-wing robots because they have high work density (specific energy) and can produce a large actuation strain. Although the active membrane of a dielectric elastomer is lightweight, the support structure that pre-tens...