Synonyms
Definition
Electromechanically active polymers are smart materials that can be used for actuation with biomimetic properties.
Overview
Electromechanically Active Polymers (EAPs) are “smart materials” that exhibit a mechanical response (deformation/force) to an electrical stimulus (Bar-Cohen 2004; Carpi 2016; Carpi and Smela 2009). They are referred to as “artificial muscle materials,” as they can emulate the main functional properties of natural muscles, in that they can combine biomimetic motion with self-sensing ability and variable stiffness operation. They also show additional attractive properties, such as light weight, mechanical compliance, compact size, simple structure, low power consumption, acoustically silent operation, and low cost.
Among the various types of EAPs available (Carpi 2016; Carpi and Smela 2009), this chapter focuses on the special kind known as “dielectric elastomers” (DEs) (Carpi et al. 2008, 2010; Pelrine et al. 2000), which...
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References
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Carpi, F., Coppola, M., Di Franco, R., Rosi, E., Vizzarro, V. (2020). Bioinspired Electromechanically Active Polymer-Based Robotics. In: Ang, M.H., Khatib, O., Siciliano, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Robotics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41610-1_118-1
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