Soft gripper actuated by electro-hydraulic force

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a soft robotic gripper to be mounted easily and to have high actuation force by harnessing electrostatic and hydraulic phenomena. Specifically, we develop a soft actuator to consist of swelling pouches, a silicon backbone beam, and a supplying pouch with electrodes on its both surfaces. The two pouches include dielectric fluid, and they are connected. When a high voltage is applied to the electrode of the supplying pouch, the fluid in the pouch moves to the swelling one. In addition, we present a soft gripper using the soft electro-hydraulic actuators.