Hydraulically amplified self-healing electrostatic actuators

2021

Patent

rm

Hydraulically-amplified, self-healing, electrostatic actuators that harness electrostatic and hydraulic forces to achieve various actuation modes. Electrostatic forces between electrode pairs of the actuators generated upon application of a voltage to the electrode pairs draws the electrodes in each pair towards each other to displace a liquid dielectric contained within an enclosed internal cavity of the actuators to drive actuation in various manners. The electrodes and the liquid dielectric form a self-healing capacitor whereby the liquid dielectric automatically fills breaches in the liquid dielectric resulting from dielectric breakdown.

@patent{Keplinger21-P-Hydraulically,
  title = {Hydraulically amplified self-healing electrostatic actuators},
  author = {Keplinger, Christoph Matthias and Acome, Eric Lucas and Kellaris, Nicholas Alexander and Mitchell, Shane Karl},
  number = {US Patent 10995779},
  month = may,
  year = {2021},
  doi = {},
  url = {https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c9/16/30/12b11de5e17c79/US10995779.pdf},
  month_numeric = {5}
}