Design and Characterization of a Thermal-electrostatic Dual-modal Soft Pouch Motor
Chuang Wu, Youzhan Wang, Xiaozheng Li, Qingbiao Li, Krishna Manaswi Digumarti, Chongjing Cao
Abstract
Pouch motors continue to attract research attention owing to their simple fabrication process, low cost, and excellent energy density. Existing pouch motors based on the liquid-gas phase transition (LGPT) principle exhibit significant stroke and force outputs but suffer from slow responses. Pouch motors that rely on the electrohydraulic actuation (EHA) demonstrate rapid responses and broad bandwidths, yet their stroke/force outputs remain limited. This paper presents a novel thermal-electrostatic dual-modal soft pouch motor (TES-SPM) that synergistically combines the advantages of LGPT and EHA. The output performance of the TES-SPM in both the LGPT and EHA modes is characterized by extensive experiments. The effects of key parameters including the liquid volumes and actuation voltage/current amplitudes are also investigated in experiments. In the EHA mode, the TES-SPM can exert a stroke of 2.5 mm within a rapid ~ 0.06 s, while in the LGPT mode, it is able to exhibit a maximum stroke of 22.8 mm and a blocking force of ~ 80 N. A novel folding fan-inspired actuator and accordion-inspired soft gripper based on the serially attached TES-SPM units are developed to demonstrate the potentials of soft robotic applications. The TES-SPM designed in this paper is envisioned to have promising applications in industrial soft grippers and wearable assistive devices.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{iros2025_designandcharact,
title = {Design and Characterization of a Thermal-electrostatic Dual-modal Soft Pouch Motor},
author = {Chuang Wu and Youzhan Wang and Xiaozheng Li and Qingbiao Li and Krishna Manaswi Digumarti and Chongjing Cao},
booktitle = {IROS 2025},
year = {2025}
}