Response to Applied Voltage to Polyurethane Soft Actuators with Loaded Weights

Pulmonary response to polyurethane dust.

Weanling and 9 months or older rats were exposed to particles of an aged (PUF I) or freshly prepared (PUF II) rigid polyurethane foam by intratracheal intubation. The dose was 5 mg of particles. The response of the lung tissue was examined morphologically by serial sacrifices. Inflammation and macrophage activity were the initial responses. Fibrosis developed after 6 months. Nodular scars and p...

Acoustic Emission Applied to Mechanically Loaded Paper

Acoustic Emission applied to mechanically loaded Paper (AEP) is a current European Union funded Fifth Framework project. The overall objective of this project is to investigate the micro mechanics behind the behaviour of paper under mechanical loading, with a view to enabling the development of new and value added paper products with a better competitive edge in the global market. To achieve th...

Soft Actuators and Robots that Are Resistant to Mechanical Damage

Robots based on rigid structural elements—metallic skeletons, electrical motors, conventional mechanical actuators, and mechanical joints—can be superb at performing tasks that require high precision, rapid movement, or application of high levels of force or power. These “hard” robots are, however, often heavy, costly, and diffi cult (and expensive) to control. [ 1–3 ] Hard robots designed to b...

Soft Arc Consistency Applied to Optimal Planning

We show in this article how the Weighted CSP framework can be used to solve an optimisation version of numerical planning. The WCSP finds an optimal plan in the planning graph containing all solution plans of minimum length. Experimental trials were performed to study the impact of soft arc consistency techniques (FDAC and EDAC) on the efficiency of the search for an optimal plan in this graph....

Polypyrrole Soft Actuators