Title: Development of a drawing device based on a new type DEA

Authors: Masafumi Kadokawa; Changan Jiang; Wei Yu

Addresses: Graduate School of Robotics and Design, Osaka Institute of Technology, 1-45 Chayamachi, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-8568, Japan ' Department of Robotics, Osaka Institute of Technology, 1-45 Chayamachi, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-8568, Japan ' School of Mechanical Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjing 300401, China

Abstract: In this study, a drawing system is developed with a new type dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) which has three degrees of freedom. One challenge with the actuator is the difficulty in applying the appropriate pre-stretch, which is crucial for its optimal performance. To address this, a mechanism that includes force measurement capabilities is developed for adding pre-stretch on DEA. Additionally, to enhance the control of the actuator, a real-time visual feedback control system that uses image processing techniques is implemented. The practical experiments are done to validate the developed device's effectiveness, where it successfully draws various figures and letters, demonstrating its capability and precision.

Keywords: dielectric elastomer actuator; DEA; 3-DOF; feedback control; PID control; image recognition; pre-stretch; pre-stretching mechanism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAMECHS.2025.144598

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems, 2025 Vol.12 No.1, pp.30 - 39

Received: 29 Aug 2024
Accepted: 09 Dec 2024
Published online: 23 Feb 2025 *

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