Rapid Fabrication of Electro-Adhesive Devices With Inkjet Printed Electrodes

• Published in: IEEE robotics and automation letters Vol. 5; no. 2; pp. 2769 - 2775
• Main Authors: Berdozzi, Nicolo, Chen, Yi, Luzi, Luca, Fontana, Marco, Fassi, Irene, Molinari Tosatti, Lorenzo, Vertechy, Rocco
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01-04-2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Adhesion tests; Adhesives; Carbon fiber reinforced plastics; Cardboard; Coated electrodes; Elastomers; Electrification; electro-adhesion; Energy requirements; Grippers and other end-effectors; inkjet printing; Polypropylene; Power consumption; Rapid prototyping; Response time; Shear stress; soft sensors and actuators; Substrates; Thin films
• ISSN: 2377-3766; 2377-3766
• DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2020.2972838

This letter proposes a procedure for the rapid prototyping and on-demand manufacturing of thin film flexible electro-adhesive devices (EADs) made with a commercial polyimide dielectric layer, inkjet printed interdigitated silver electrodes and blade coated silicone elastomer encapsulation backing. As a proof demonstration, flexible thin-film EADs featuring 9.6 cm2 active area, 315 μm thickness and 0.7 g weight have been manufactured and tested over different adhering substrates showing peak adhesive shear stresses of up to 56.67 kPa, fast response time (11 ms for initial activation and 0.3 s for full electrification) and little energy requirements (from 1.3 mJ for initial activation to 20 mJ for full electrification and with a subsequent power consumption of about 1 mW for long-term grasp holding). Practical application of the manufactured EADs within a gripper for the grasping and handling of real objects that include a glass bottle, a hollow carbon fiber tube, a cardboard box, a box with thin polypropylene envelope and a polypropylene bottle is also demonstrated.