Abstract

We propose a novel method to design the shape of small elastic robots made entirely of electroactive polymer (EAP) gel. The gel operates as actuators in microsystems and can facilitate bending motions. In this paper, we bring out directional deformation from originally bending type polymer driven by electric fields. The key idea is to partially reduce the structural flexibility through shape design. To achieve directional motion, we designed gels with wave-shaped surfaces. The thick parts and thin parts of the surface are distributed in either one or two directions. We developed a mollusk type gel robot which shows bi-directional motion. In this way, we propose the method to design the desired deformation response by shape design of the material in advance. This technique is especially suited for MEMS consisting of soft materials.