Micro robot actuated by soft actuators based on dielectric elastomer

In this paper a micro robot, mimicking annelid animals like the eaxthworm, is presented. The robot is composed of several ringlike segments. Each segment is able to generate three degree-of-freedom motions such as pan/tilt/up-down, respectively and it is actuated by three soft actuators located equidistantly along the circumferential direction. The soft actuator, called ANTagonistically-driven Linear Actuator(ANTLA), is based on polymer dielectrics and it has musclelike characteristics capable of performing motions such as forward /backward/controllable compliance. In this paper, basic concept of the actuator is briefly overviewed and the robot, including the ringlike segment is explained in detail with demonstrations.