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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1999

Electro-Statically Stricted Polymers (ESSP)

Miniature, lightweight, miser actuators that operate similar to biological muscles can be used to develop robotic devices with unmatched capabilities and impact many technology areas. Electroactive polymers (EAP) offer the potential to producing such actuators and their main attractive feature is their ability to induce relatively large bending or longitudinal strain. EAP actuators can change the paradigm about the complexity of robots, where robotic components such as motors, gears, bearings, and others can be eliminated with simple drive mechanisms. Generally, these materials produce a relatively low force and the applications that can be considered at the current state of the art are relatively limited. While improved material are being developed there is a need for methods to develop longitudinal actuators that can contract similar to muscles. In this study, the authors began investigating the electromechanical behavior of polymers in reaction to a complex configuration of electric fields. A computer model was used to simulate the electromechanical response. Efforts were made to develop both the material basis as well as the electromechanical modeling of the actuator.

Liu, C.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Humanoids and the Potential Role of Electroactive Materials/Mechanisms in Advancing Their Capability

Humanoids are increasingly becoming capable biologically inspired robots that are appearing and behaving lifelike. Making humanlike robots is the ultimate challenge to biomimetics and, while for many years they were considered a science fiction, such robots are increasingly becoming engineering reality. Progress in producing such robots are allowing them to perform impressive functions and tasks. In 2012, in an effort to promote significant advances in developing humanoids, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) posed a Robotic Challenge to produce such robots that operate in disaster scenarios towards making society more resilient. The challenge was focused on the requirements that have been needed after the Fukushima accident in Japan, hoping to advance the field of disaster robotics. This disaster posed significant challenges to emergency responders since radiation prevented people from going into the station and venting the explosive gas. Another significant development in this field is the fact that major US corporations have entered into the race to produce commercial humanoids. As a result, one can expect significant and rapid progress in this field. Developing humanoids is critically dependent of the use of highly efficient, compact, lightweight actuators and electroactive materials are offering great potential. This paper reviews the state-of-theart of humanlike robots, potential applications and challenges, as well as the actuation materials that are used or could be used.

Electroactive Polymer Actuators↗
NASA NTRS2006

Biomimetics as a Model for Inspiring Human Innovation

Electroactive polymers (EAP) are human made actuators that are the closest to mimic biological muscles. Technology was advanced to the level that biologically inspired robots are taking increasing roles in the world around us and making science fiction ideas a closer engineering reality. Artificial technologies (AI, AM, and others) are increasingly becoming practical tools for making biologically inspired devices and instruments with enormous potential for space applications. Polymer materials are used to produce figures that resemble human and animals. These materials are widely employed by the movie industry for making acting figures and by the orthopedic industry to construct cyborg components. There are still many challenges ahead that are critical to making such possibilities practical. The annual armwrestling contest is providing an exciting measure of how well advances in EAP are implemented to address the field challenges. There is a need to document natures inventions in an engineering form to possibly inspire new capabilities.

Electroactive Polymers (EAP)↗
NASA NTRS1998

Bendbots

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

(EAP) surface wiper gripper robotic arm↗
NASA NTRS2001

Electroactive Polymers as Artificial Muscles - Reality and Challenges

Electroactive Polymers (EAPs) are emerging as effective displacement actuators. These materials offer the closest resemblance of biological muscle potentially enabling unique capabilities changing the paradigm about robots construction. Under a NASA task, several EAP driven mechanisms were developed including dust wiper, gripper, and robotic arm EAP are inducing a low actuation force limiting the applications that can use their current capability. In recognition of this limitation a series of international forums were established including SPIE conference, Webhub, Newsletter, and Newsgroup. A challenge was posed to the EAP community to have an arm wrestling between robot that is equipped with EAP actuators and human.

Bar-Cohen, Y.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Humanoids and the Potential Role of Electroactive Materials/Mechanisms in Advancing Their Capability

Humanoids are increasingly becoming capable biologically inspired robots that are appearing and behaving lifelike. Making humanlike robots is the ultimate challenge to biomimetics and, while for many years they were considered a science fiction, such robots are increasingly becoming engineering reality. Progress in producing such robots are allowing them to perform impressive functions and tasks. In 2012, in an effort to promote significant advances in developing humanoids, DARPA posed a Robotic Challenge to produce such robots that operate in disaster scenarios towards making society more resilient. The challenge was focused on the requirements that have been needed after the Fukushima accident in Japan, hoping to advance the field of disaster robotics. This disaster posed significant challenges to emergency responders since radiation prevented people from going into the station and venting the explosive gas. Another significant development in this field is the fact that major US corporations have entered into the race to produce commercial humanoids. As a result, one can expect significant and rapid progress in this field. Developing humanoids is critically dependent of the use of highly efficient, compact, lightweight actuators and electroactive materials are offering great potential. This paper reviews the state-of-theart of humanlike robots, potential applications and challenges, as well as the actuation materials that are used or could be used.

Electroactive Polymer Actuators↗
NASA NTRS2004

Artificial Muscle Kits for the Classroom

Commonly referred to as "artificial muscles," electroactive polymer (EAP) materials are lightweight strips of highly flexible plastic that bend or stretch when subjected to electric voltage. EAP materials may prove to be a substitution for conventional actuation components such as motors and gears. Since the materials behave similarly to biological muscles, this emerging technology has the potential to develop improved prosthetics and biologically-inspired robots, and may even one day replace damaged human muscles. The practical application of artificial muscles provides a challenge, however, since the material requires improved effectiveness and durability before it can fulfill its potential.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2001

Androids: application of EAP as artificial muscles to entertainment industry

The classic movie Metropolis (1926), which is nowadays considered a cinema milestone, has shown the possibility to build robots called androids that are science and fiction run together to realize a dream: the human-like robot. In that movie, Dr. Rotwang transforms a simple and cold calculating robot into the body of a beautiful woman. Robots have often been depicted as metal creatures with cold steel bodies, but there is no reason why metals should be the only kind of material for construction of robots. The authors examined the issues related to applying electroactive polymers materials (EAP) to the entertainment industry. EAP are offering attractive characteristics with the potential to produce more realistic models of living creatures at significantly lower cost. This paper seeks to elucidate how EAP might infiltrate and ultimately revolutionize entertainment, showing some applicative examples.

Animatronics↗