Characterization of Energy Consumption of a Dielectric Elastomer Actuator Based Flapping Wing

Recent literature in soft robotics has been focused on bio-mimetic technologies, i.e., trying to replicate naturallyoccurring structures, such as artificial muscles. Flapping structures have been reported, wherein a soft wing is paired with a solid actuator or vice-versa, but a fully soft actuator and wing setup has only recently been developed. In this work, we present the fabrication and characterization of the electrical response of a fully soft DEA-based flapping wing actuator. The actuator was fabricated using a urethane acrylate polymer elastomer with carbon nanotube (CNT) based electrodes. The <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$40 ~\text{mm} \times 20 ~\text{mm}$</tex> rectangular actuator was powered through two electrodes. It was subjected to static DC voltages in the range of 1 kV to 2 kV and the current and energy drawn by the actuator were observed. We report the average settling current varying from <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$7 \mu ~\mathrm{A}$</tex> to <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$43 \mu \mathrm{A}$</tex> and energy draw varying from 220 mJ to 715 mJ. Further tests on a similarly fabricated actuator revealed the possibility of Time Dependent Dielectric breakdown (TDDB) encountered at 2 kV after nearly 120 minutes.