Development of Pre-stretch Mechanism for Fabricating Thin DEAs

In recent years, with the boom in soft robotics, soft actuators have also attracted attention. In this study, to improve the performance of dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA), which is one type of soft actuators, a pre-stretch mechanism using a stepping motor is developed. Performance testing for fabricated thin DEA will be conducted, and the experiments will also be done to confirm the effect of stretching speed on the performance of the actuator. Finally, a 3-DOF thin DEA fabricated using the developed pre-stretch mechanism is mounted on a drawing device to realize writing characters.