Principal Investigator: Prof Lee Pooi See (Associate Dean, College of Engineering, NTU)
Team: Tan Wei Ming Matthew (Ph.D. Student, School of Materials Science and Engineering (MAE), NTU), Chan Weijie Benjamin (M.Eng. Student, MSE, NTU), Gong Xuefei (Ph.D. Student, MSE, NTU), Gaw Sheng Long (Process Integration Engineer, Micron Singapore)
Mentor: Jagjit Singh (Mentor, NTUitive Pte Ltd)
A soft and flexible device that provides controlled sub-second touch motions
Our technology comprises of a soft buckling actuator that avoids the use of rigid components. The actuator is dielectric elastomers, sandwiched between electrodes, which display a change in size and shape when an electric field is applied. Through the application of certain boundary conditions, it invokes an out of plane deflection at the electrode region. The device displays rapid sub-second response times with minimal loss in performance over time. It is soft and flexible allowing it to operate in various configurations and forms. Such a device can be used to provide haptic feedback in robotic systems or even pseudo-muscular motors for robotics.