CTF-based soft touch actuator for playing electronic piano.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33097728.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-19180-3 and PMC identifier 7585428.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
In the field of bioinspired soft robotics, to accomplish sophisticated tasks in human fingers, electroactive artificial muscles are under development. However, most existing actuators show a lack of high bending displacement and irregular response characteristics under low input voltages. Here, based on metal free covalent triazine frameworks (CTFs), we report an electro-ionic soft actuator that shows high bending deformation under ultralow input voltages that can be implemented as a soft robotic touch finger on fragile displays. The as-synthesized CTFs, derived from a polymer of intrinsic microporosity (PIM-1), were combined with poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT-PSS) to make a flexible electrode for a high-performance electro-ionic soft actuator. The proposed soft touch finger showed high peak-to-peak displacement of 17.0 mm under ultralow square voltage of ±0.5 V, with 0.1 Hz frequency and 4 times reduced phase delay in harmonic response compared with that of a pure PEDOT-PSS-based actuator. The significant actuation performance is mainly due to the unique physical and chemical configurations of CTFs electrode with highly porous and electrically conjugated networks. On a fragile display, the developed soft robotic touch finger array was successfully used to perform soft touching, similar to that of a real human finger; device was used to accomplish a precise task, playing electronic piano.