PRE-curved PVDF/PI unimorph structures for biomimic soft crawling actuators

Abstract

This work reports a pre-curved piezoelectric unimorph structure to have large curvature changes under a relatively low driving voltage as a soft inchworm actuator. Several unique accomplishments have been demonstrated: (1) polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)-based actuator using the lowest driving voltage in published reports of 200 Volts peak to peak; (2) electrically-driven biomimetic soft crawling actuation with a moving speed up to 1.9mm/s on a rough surface; and (3) operations under low power consumptions of 150μW/cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> . As such, this new class of soft crawling actuator could open up new opportunities for the actuation of soft robots.