Abstract
The elderly and the sports injured people are inconvenient for their daily life. Respecting the issue we attempt to develop convenient, light and quiet equipment for lower limbs. Avoid the application of motor, transmission and traditional mechanism. Researcher of the field pay attention to the EPA (electroavtive polymer) could change shape and size by the simulation of electricity. DEA (Dielectric Elastomer Actuator) is one of the most potential materials in EPA, which can generate large actuation force (>1N), stretch (up to 380% in area) and fast response (<100ms). Besides, DEA also keep the characters of polymer –light, compliant, flexible and cheap. As to the mention above, DEA are very helpful to become the next generation of actuator for bio-mimetic robots and biomedical, etc. The goal of this research is to create an ankle orthosis made of polymer actuator. Therefore, we use 3M VHB4910 for dielectric material to make antagonistical DEAs. But by the outcome of experiences, the linear displacement forced by the actuator in the application had its own limits. Consequently, we devise a new design-antagonistically rotational actuator according to the principle of clutch(one way displacement accumulation) to increase displacement. Antagonistical DEAs do linear and actreciprocating motion by apply voltage (sinusoidal signal) to one side of DEAs. Linear and actreciprocating motion can be transferred to intermittentone and one way rotational motion by the set of clutch. Finally, the rotational displacement is accumulated. While improving the actuation force, antagonistically rotational actuator can lift the weight.