Soft Actuators
Speaker : G. Manikandan
Date : 12th February, 2021 (Friday)
Time : 5.00 P.M.
Abstract
Nastic movements observed in nature inspire the design of soft actuators for promising applications such as soft robotics, artificial muscles, chemosensors, soft grippers, and sustainable energy generators [1-3]. Soft actuators with tunable actuation kinetics and responding to a wide range of external stimulants such as electric field, magnetic field, light, humidity, temperature, pH of solvents, and organic vapours are fabricated from engineered polymers [4]. These actuators can produce complex shapes upon stimuli exposure, driven by the anisotropic volume change in a reversible manner. In this talk, I will focus on the basics of actuators and the methodologies used to fabricate the soft actuators.
References:
1. Burgert, I.; Fratzl, P. Actuation Systems in Plants as Prototypes for Bioinspired Devices. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 2009, 367, 1541-1557.
2. Hines, L.; Petersen, K.; Lum, G. Z.; Sitti, M. Soft Actuators for Small-Scale Robotics. Advanced Materials 2017, 29, 1603483.
3. Park, Y.; Chen, X. Water-Responsive Materials for Sustainable Energy Applications. J. Mater. Chem. A 2020, 8, 15227-15244.
4. Laschi, C.; Mazzolai, B.; Cianchetti, M. Soft robotics: Technologies and Systems Pushing the Boundaries of Robot Abilities. Sci. Robot 2016, 1, eaah3690.
About the speaker
G. Manikandan is a interdisciplinary research scholar working on soft actuators in Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering and Department of Physics, at IIT Madras. He is guided by Prof. N V Ravi Kumar and Prof. Dillip K Satapathy. He completed his M. Tech. Textile Engineering from A.C. Tech, Anna University.
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