TY - JOUR
AU1 - Assaf, Tareq
AU2 - Conn, Andrew
AU3 - Rossiter, Jonathan
AU4 - Walters, Peter
AU5 - Pearson, Martin
AB - The article presents a working whisker structure based on dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). This preliminary work aims to exploit the features of the dielectric elastomer technology for use in an effective and reliable robotic  application  whilst  accommodating  the  limitations  of  this  emerging  actuation  technique.   To this end, a modular design and structure have been conceived to simplify the building and repair process of the critical components such as the connectors, wiring, sensors and DEA membranes. This design represents the engineering and scaling of the concepts and techniques developed in previous work, and to overcome identified technical and methodological constraints that previously prohibited extensive real applications. The structure is realised as a trade-off between the unique characteristics of the DEA technology and the robotic development issues. Safety, robustness, production  time  and key aspects of  robotic  design  are  taken  into  account  in  the  development  of this prototype. The results presented show how this structure addresses the design requirement and technical constraints previously identified. The active whisking range achieved is 14 degrees, measured using image processing of videos captured by both standard and high speed cameras. This metric will be used as one of the measures for planned improvements that are discussed in addition to the advantages and limitations of the structure and the design decisions made.
TI - Artificial vibrissae DEA-based module
JF - Proceedings of SPIE
DO - 10.1117/12.2044763
DA - 2014-03-08
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/spie/artificial-vibrissae-dea-based-module-jPynvIqW2m
SP - 90562O
EP - 90562O-9
VL - 9056
IS - 
DP - DeepDyve
ER -