Due to the large strain capability, electroactive polymers (EAPs) are promising materials for several engineering applications, for example: they can be used as actuators and sensors in cameras, pumps, valves, etc. Generally speaking, the mode of action in EAPs is based on Coulomb forces generated by electric field that causes the polymer membrane to contract in the thickness direction. In this...

This paper deals with the optimal path placement for a manipulator based on energy consumption. It proposes a methodology to determine the optimal location of a given test path within the workspace of a manipulator with minimal electric energy used by the actuators while taking into account the geometric, kinematic and dynamic constraints. The proposed methodology is applied to the Orthoglide 3...

1.1 Ultra-precision moving positioning stage A typical ultra-precision moving positioning stage is often used in ultra-precision manufacturing system for its nanometer displacement and fast linear moving speed. Usually, such platform consists of electric amplifiers, piezoelectric actuators and loads. As hysteresis is inherent in piezoelectric actuator, the amplifier and load can be considered a...

The presence of van der Waals (vdW) force can lead to mechanical instability in freestanding nano-scale actuators. Most of the previous researches in this area have exclusively focused on modeling the instability in actuators with one actuating components. While, less attention has been paid to actuators consist of two actuating components. Herein, the effect of the vdW force on the instability...

The authors study here the problem of adaptive ”soft-landing” control for electromagnetic actuators. The soft landing requires accurate control of the actuator’s moving element between two desired positions. They propose a non-linear adaptive controller to solve the problem of robust trajectory tracking for the moving element, when considering model uncertainties with linear parametrisation. Th...

Hydraulic system has benefits over pneumatic or electric systems, especially when heavy loads are involved, very smooth and precise position pressure control is required. actuators have several advantages including the fact that they produce less heat electrical interference at machine than do actuators. A simulation model of support was established to determine dynamic responses hydraulic unde...

The main purpose of this paper is to study the solution behavior of the transient heat transfer problem for one-dimensional symmetric thermoelectric shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators. It is proved that for the transient cooling problem with constant electric current density of magnitude |J | there is a value J0 of |J | such that when |J | < J0, the temperature in SMA is always decreasing to it...

We present a composite material with embedded sensing and actuation that can perform permanent shape changes by temporarily varying its stiffness and applying an external moment. Varying stiffness is a complementary approach to actuator-chain based approaches that can be accomplished using a large variety of means ranging from heat, electric field or vacuum. A polycaprolactone (PCL) bar provide...