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Out-of-Plane Soft Lithography for Soft Pneumatic Microactuator Arrays.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

De Borre, Eline 
Ceyssens, Frederik 
Reynaerts, Dominiek 

Abstract

Elastic pneumatic actuators are fueling new devices and applications in soft robotics. Actuator miniaturization is critical to enable soft microsystems for applications in microfluidics and micromanipulation. This work proposes a fabrication technique to make out-of-plane bending microactuators entirely by soft lithography. The only bonding step required is to seal the embedded fluidic channels, assuring the structural integrity of the microactuators. The process consists of fabricating two SU8 mold halves using different lithographic layers. Polydimethilsiloxane is poured on the bottom mold, which is subsequently aligned and assembled with the top mold. The process allows for out-of-plane actuators with a diameter of 300 μm and for fabricating arrays of up to 36 actuators that are row addressable. These active micropillars have an aspect ratio of 1:1.5 and, when pressurized at 1 bar, show a bending angle of ∼30°.

Description

Keywords

active pillars, artificial cilia, soft bending microactuators, soft lithography, soft robotics

Journal Title

Soft Robot

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2169-5172
2169-5180

Volume Title

Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert Inc
Sponsorship
FWO - Belgium