Parallel electrostatic grippers for layered assembly

Abstract Layered Assembly is a voxel-based additive manufacturing method in which premanufactured voxels serve as the feedstock for producing multi-material parts. The parallel placement of voxels necessary for Layered Assembly is carried out by electroadhesion—a type of astrictive prehension, which is an elegant, scalable, low-power, solid-state, and epoxy-free grasping method with numerous applications. In the present work, 2 × 2 arrays of electroadhesive grippers were designed in both comb- and spiral-shaped electrode geometries. Electrodes were nominally designed for grasping voxels of 3 × 3 mm cross-section. Electrostatic field simulations were performed in COMSOL Multiphysics for both single electrodes, and 2 × 2 electrode arrays. The selective gripping capability of the electrode arrays was tested at voltages in the 75–800 V range and applied to both polymer and metallic voxels. A comparison of electrode performance in terms of geometry revealed that comb-shaped electrodes were superior, due to ≈100% reliability when operating in the 600–800 V range.

[1]  Gareth J. Monkman.  Electroadhesive microgrippers , 2003, Ind. Robot.

[2]  Neil Gershenfeld,et al.  Automated Assembly of Electronic Digital Materials , 2016 .

[3]  Xi-Qiao Feng,et al.  Theoretical model and design of electroadhesive pad with interdigitated electrodes , 2016 .

[4]  Hod Lipson,et al.  Rapid Assemblers for Voxel-Based VLSI Robotics , 2014 .

[5]  Guha Manogharan,et al.  Making sense of 3-D printing: Creating a map of additive manufacturing products and services , 2014 .

[6]  Daniel M. Vogt,et al.  Embedded 3D Printing of Strain Sensors within Highly Stretchable Elastomers , 2014, Advanced materials.

[7]  Hod Lipson,et al.  Design and analysis of digital materials for physical 3D voxel printing , 2009 .

[8]  Gareth J. Monkman.  An Analysis of Astrictive Prehension , 1997, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[9]  Rui Chen,et al.  Modeling and analysis of electric field and electrostatic adhesion force generated by interdigital electrodes for wall climbing robots , 2013, 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[10]  Wei Li,et al.  Fabrication and Characterization of a Functionally Graded Material from Ti-6Al-4V to SS316 by Laser Metal Deposition , 2017 .

[11]  N. Gershenfeld,et al.  Digital materials for digital printing , 2006, NIP & Digital Fabrication Conference.

[12]  LipsonHod,et al.  Digital Wood: 3D Internal Color Texture Mapping , 2018, 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing.

[13]  Kamran Mumtaz,et al.  Laser melting functionally graded composition of Waspaloy® and Zirconia powders , 2007 .

[14]  Hod Lipson,et al.  Methods of Parallel Voxel Manipulation for 3D Digital Printing , 2007 .

[15]  N. Oxman,et al.  Digital anisotropy: A variable elasticity rapid prototyping platform , 2012 .

[16]  Donald Ruffatto,et al.  Increasing the adhesion force of electrostatic adhesives using optimized electrode geometry and a novel manufacturing process , 2014 .

[17]  Braven C. Leung,et al.  Validation of electroadhesion as a docking method for spacecraft and satellite servicing , 2015, 2015 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[18]  Gregory L. Whiting,et al.  Multi-Material 3D Printing , 2014 .

[19]  Neil Gershenfeld,et al.  When things start to think , 1999 .

[20]  Hod Lipson,et al.  Freeform fabrication of zinc‐air batteries and electromechanical assemblies , 2004 .

[21]  Jianglong Guo,et al.  Geometric Optimisation of Electroadhesive Actuators Based on 3D Electrostatic Simulation and its Experimental Verification , 2016 .

[22]  Crystal E Owens,et al.  High-precision modular microfluidics by micromilling of interlocking injection-molded blocks. , 2017, Lab on a chip.

[23]  Mats Jackson,et al.  Investigation of relationship between interfacial electroadhesive force and surface texture , 2016 .

[24]  Hod Lipson,et al.  Bitblox: Printable digital materials for electromechanical machines , 2014, Int. J. Robotics Res..