Force-feedback mechanisms have been designed to simplify and enhance the humanvehicle interface. The increase in secondary controls within vehicle cockpits has created a desire for a simpler, more efficient human-vehicle interface. By consolidating various controls into a single, haptic feedback control device, information can be transmitted to the operator, without requiring the driver’s visua...

This report presents a literature review on the modeling of dielectric polymer actuators (DPA). The principle of actuation of these actuators and the underlying physics of dielectrics is exposed in order to introduce all the sources of difficulty responsible for the complex behaviour of DPAs. A variational formulation is proposed to model the behaviour of DPA, based on the variation of the diel...

Traditionally the control of pneumatic actuators has been limited to movement between pre-set stops or switches. Modern pneumatic systems exhibit great power to weight ratio, are backdrivable and can be precision controlled. As such these actuators offer great advantages over direct drive electric motors for robotic devices. Increasingly robots are required to interact directly with humans requ...

Piezoelectric materials are widely used in the design of smart structures. It is thus of major technological interest to provide efficient modelings of such structures. In the case of thin piezoelectric plates, classical studies generally lead to two different models. These two models can be linked to the distinction between sensors and actuators. Here, we extend these results to the second ord...

Dielectric elastomers are capable of large deformation subject to an electric voltage and are promising for use as actuators, sensors, and generators. Because of large deformation, nonlinear equations of states, and diverse modes of failure, modeling the process of electromechanical transduction has been challenging. This paper studies a membrane of a dielectric elastomer deformed into an out-o...

The development of actuation-enabled materials is important for smart devices and systems. Among them, graphene with outstanding electric, thermal, and mechanical properties holds great promise as a new type of stimuli-responsive material. In this study, we developed a re-shaping strategy to construct structure-controlled graphene hydrogels for highly enhanced actuation responses. Actuators bas...

Abstract: This paper introduces model-based Plug and Play Process Control, a novel concept for process control, which allows a model-based control system to be reconfigured when a sensor or an actuator is plugged into a controlled process. The work reported in this paper focuses on composing a monolithic model from models of a process to be controlled and the actuators and sensors connected to ...

In this paper we report a novel capillary-force-driven selfassembly technique which proceeds in an air environment. We demonstrate this technique for the self-assembly of piezoelectric driving elements (PZT) for diffuser valve micropumps: with the agitation of an orbital shaker, square PZT actuators self-align and mount to the hydrophilic trench binding sites with electric connections by heat c...

The working mechanisms of surface dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) plasma actuators foreseen as aerodynamic control devices is investigated experimentally on a common platform, referred to as the NATO-AVT-RTO-190 test case. A better understanding of the working principle and characteristics of SDBD paves the way for more efficient and safe use of plasma actuators in aerodynamic applications....

The McKibben artificial muscle is a pneumatic actuator whose properties include a very high force to weight ratio. This characteristic makes it very attractive for a wide range of applications such as mobile robots and prosthetic appliances for the disabled. Typical applications often require a significant number of repeated contractions and extensions or cycles of the actuator. This repeated a...