Conclusion and Future Works

Abstract

This book proposed novel methods for building deformable machines with conceptually infinite degrees of freedom. The bodies of these machines consist of actively deformable materials, which are generally referred to as artificial muscles. Recent advances in electroactive polymers provided promising classes of materials for these artificial muscles. Despite their lack of durability, strength and safety, preventing them from being of complete practical use, we were still motivated for realizing deformable machines. Rather than solving the material problems, we tackled the following mechanical problems: organized the universal difficulty to embody deformable machines made of active materials into two parts. One originates in deformability of the machines, and the other derives from activeness of the materials applied. It was referred to as the deformability problem and the activeness problem. The major finding of this research is that these problems are complimentary, and one solves the other. Gel robots were prototyped utilizing electroactive polymers in order to solve these problems. Modelling, design and control methodologies were explored, which form the foundations in addressing the key issues.

In this chapter, the findings are summarized, and the ideas are integrated from the viewpoint of activeness and deformability. We also discuss the application of the results and future works.

This chapter was adapted from in part, by permission, M. Otake, “Agent Model of Electroactive Polymers: How can we bring out intelligence from smart materials?”, Proceedings of the Third Conference on Artificial Muscles, 2006.