Twisted Coiled Polymer Actuator

 Up to now, various artificial muscles have been reported. Electro-active polymer (EAP) actuators are the well-known artificial muscles, mostly driven by electrical energy. It is largely divided into dry ones and wet ones. Although EAP actuators show muscle-like characteristics, the dry ones require relatively high-voltage for actuation. On the contrary, wet ones generate too weak actuation forces, though its driving voltage is low. The pneumatic artificial muscles have gainedinterests among the researchers recently. They are composed of elastomeric tube reinforced with mesh or fiber. Since their actuation is produced by using compressed air, it needs supplementary components such as air chamber, pump and valve. Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) is one of the actuators driven by thermal energy. They exhibit good performances on strain and force. However, low driving speed, large hysteresis and difficulty in control are critical drawbacks. Recently, a new type of a thermal-driven artificial muscle was reported. The twisted and coiled polymer actuator (TCA) generates surprisingly high specific power. Its hysteresis is much smaller than SMA, and the temperature range is wide comparing with SMA. It thus seems to be appropriate in practical applications. Diverse studies about TCA have been performed as follows. In order to heat the actuator easily and simply, conductive sewing thread or silver-coated fishing line are adopted. A fabrication method and an experimental device are introduced for the evaluation of TCA. TCAs arranged with a pennate configuration are demonstrated to increase force and vary stiffness. TCA is used as an actuator for a robotic finger or arm.

Publications

• SY Yang, K Kim, JU Ko, S Seo, ST Hwang, JH Park, HS Jung, YJ Gong, JW Suk, H Rodrigue, H Moon, JC Koo, J Nam, HR Choi. "Design and control of lightweight bionic arm driven by soft twisted and coiled artificial muscles", Soft Robotics, 2022

• SY Yang, K Kim, S Seo, D Shin, JH Park, YJ Gong, HR Choi. "Hybrid antagonistic system with coiled shape memory alloy and twisted and coiled polymer actuator for lightweight robotic arm", IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 7 (2), 4496-4503, 2022

• K Kim, SY Yang, JH Park, HS Jung, JU Ko, ST Hwang, JC Koo, H Moon, H Rodrigue, HR Choi. "Torque-compensated bundle of artificial muscle to generate large forces", Materials Research Express 8 (11), 115301, 2021

• KH Cho, Y Kim, SY Yang, K Kim, JH Park, H Rodrigue, H Moon, JC Koo, HR Choi. "Artificial musculoskeletal actuation module driven by twisted and coiled soft actuators", Smart Materials and Structures 28 (12), 125010, 2019

• KH Cho, HS Jung, SY Yang, Y Kim, H Rodrigue, H Moon, JC Koo, HR Choi. "Sliding filament joint mechanism: Biomimetic artificial joint mechanism for artificial skeletal muscles", Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics 11 (2), 2019

• Ki Hyeon Kim, Kyeong Ho Cho, Ho Sang Jung,Hae Hyeong Park, Sang Yul Yang, Youngeun Kim, ... & Hyouk Ryeol Choi, (2018, August). "Double Helix Twisted and Coiled Sofr Actuator from Spandex and Nylon", Advanced Engineering Materials, vol. 20, Issue 11

• Kyeong Ho Cho, Ho Moon Kim, Young Eun Kim, Sang Yul Yang, Hyouk Ryeol Choi, (2018), "Multiple Inputs-Single Accumulated Output Mechanism for Soft Linear Actuators", Mechanisms and Robotics,vol.11, Issue 1

• Sang Yul Yang, Kyeong Ho Cho, Youngeun Kim, Min-Geun Song, ... &  Hyouk Ryeol Choi  (2017, September). "High performance twisted and coiled soft actuator with spandex fiber for artificial muscles." In Smart Materials and Structures (Smart Mater), 2017 Smart Materials and Structures, Volume 26, Number 10.

• • Cho, K. H., Song, M. G., Jung, H., Yang, S. Y., Moon, H., Koo, J. C., ... & Choi, H. R. (2016, June). “Fabrication and modeling of temperature-controllable artificial muscle actuator.” In Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), 2016 6th IEEE International Conference on (pp. 94-98). IEEE.
• • Cho, K. H., Song, M. G., Jung, H., Park, J., Moon, H., Koo, J. C., ... & Choi, H. R. (2016, April). “A robotic finger driven by twisted and coiled polymer actuator”. In SPIE Smart Structures and Materials+ Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring (pp. 97981J-97981J). International Society for Optics and Photonics.
• • Kyeong Ho Cho, Min Geun Song, Hosang Jung, Sang Yul Yang, Hyouk Ryeol Choi. “Position Control of Thermistor-embedded Twisted and Coiled Polymer Actuator”. 2016 16th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS 2016)
• • Cheng Xu Piao, Kyeong Ho Cho, Min Geun Song, Vishakha Kaushik, Hyouk Ryeol Choi and Ji Won Suk. “Efficient Cooling of Thermally-Actuated Soft Actuators Using Carbon Nanocomposites”. 2016 16th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS 2016)

Researcher