#Electroadhesion

[materialsscienceandengineering]

This Video is About Electroadhesion.

How would you stick a slice of banana to a sheet of copper? Until a few months ago, you couldn’t. But a new discovery called “hard-soft electroadhesion” enables chemists to stick almost any hydrogel to almost any metal, using nothing but an electric current. Join George as he tries to replicate electroadhesion in his basement and discovers what it has in common with superglue… and, surprisingly, water.

[retroactivebakeries]

an unbreakable electroadhesion between slimegirls and lawyers

of course this cascades into a bunch of slimegirl lawyers electroadhering to each other and forming a singular giant blobgirl of litigation

[y2fear]

ESTAT introduces new linear electroadhesive brake for motion control

[myfeeds]

Gluing soft materials without glue

Science News from research organizations 1 2 Date: May 3, 2023 Source: American Chemical Society Summary: If you’re a fan of arts and crafts, you’re likely familiar with the messy, sticky, frustration-inducing nature of liquid glues. But researchers now have a brand-new way to weld squishy stuff together without the need for glue at all. They’ve demonstrated a universal, ‘electroadhesion’ technique that can adhere soft materials to each other just by running electricity through them. Share: advertisement FULL STORY If you’re a fan of arts and crafts, you’re likely familiar with the messy, sticky, frustration-inducing nature of liquid glues. But researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces now have a brand-new way to weld squishy stuff together without the need for glue at all. They’ve demonstrated a universal, “electroadhesion” technique that can adhere soft materials to each other just by running electricity through them. There’s a glue out there for almost any situation, whether it involves plastic, fabric, wood or beyond. But things get a bit tricky when materials are soft and squishy, like tissues or engineered organs. Strategies including 3D-printing avoid glues altogether by fusing together an entire structure — such as an organ — all at once. But this can be slow and laborious, and require advanced technical equipment. Another alternative could be electroadhesion, in which an electric field is used to hold oppositely charged materials together, forming attachments between the materials’ components. This can involve chemical bonds, like ionic bonds, or more physical connections, like ensnaring polymer chains together. Plus, it works with little more than a household battery and pencil lead. Previously, Srinivasa Raghavan and colleagues showed that electroadhesion could reversibly hold a gel to a tissue without the need for sutures. But now, they wanted to see if the technique could work for any two materials, given that they had opposite charges, to precisely and reversibly hold them together. To explore the phenomenon, the team tested a gel in addition to three types of capsules made of alginate or chitosan — both naturally occurring polymers — that were either positively or negatively charged. When attached to graphite electrodes and exposed to a 10-V electric field for around 10 seconds, the oppositely charged materials stuck together. This bond was strong enough to withstand gravity, and evidence from previous experiments suggests it could last for years. By reversing the flow of electricity, however, the bond was easily broken. The team assembled chains and even 3D cubes out of individual, spherical capsules. The researchers also used electroadhesion to sort capsules by their charges, either by laying a charged gel on top of several capsules, or by touching them with a fingertip “robot” that adhered the capsules to themselves. The researchers say that this work demonstrates the universality of electroadhesion and could one day be used in robotics and tissue engineering. Video: https://youtu.be/QMSWC1Egn1A advertisement Story Source: Materials provided by American Chemical Society. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Journal Reference: Leah K. Borden, Ankit Gargava, Uma J. Kokilepersaud, Srinivasa R. Raghavan. Universal Way to “Glue” Capsules and Gels into 3D Structures by Electroadhesion. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2023; 15 (13): 17070 DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c20793 Cite This Page: American Chemical Society. “‘Gluing’ soft materials without glue.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 3 May 2023. . American Chemical Society. (2023, May 3). ‘Gluing’ soft materials without glue. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 3, 2023 from https://ift.tt/QbWaZ5V American Chemical Society. “‘Gluing’ soft materials without glue.” ScienceDaily. https://ift.tt/QbWaZ5V (accessed May 3, 2023).

[stevebattle]

HAMR-E – Harvard Ambulatory Micro-Robot with Electroadhesion, by Sébastien D. de Rivaz et al (2018), Hansjörg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University. This tiny (1.48 gram) quadrupedal micro-robot can climb conductive surfaces using high-voltage to generate an electrostatic force between the foot pads and the surface. It was developed in conjunction with Rolls-Royce with the idea of inspecting the interior of jet engines without the expense of dismantling them.

[freehealthteacher]

'Electroadhesive' stamp picks up and puts down microscopic structures

‘Electroadhesive’ stamp picks up and puts down microscopic structures

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IMAGE: Optical image of a pattern of silicon dioxide particles, each 5 micrometers in diameter, and individually picked and placed using a new “electroadhesive ” stamp. view more 

Credit: Sanha Kim and John Hart

If you were to pry open your smartphone, you would see an array of electronic chips and components laid out across a circuit board, like a miniature city. Each component…

[intell-news-blog]

Researchers have created a micro-robot whose electroadhesive foot pads, inspired by the pads on a gecko's feet, allow it to climb on vertical and upside-down conductive surfaces, like the inside walls of a commercial jet engine. Groups of them could one day be used to inspect complicated machinery and detect safety issues sooner, while reducing

[revcruz]

The Gecko autonomous devices are wall climbing robots equipped with a spectrum of wall adhesion technologies to adapt to any potential vertical obstacle. Embedded in each of its 16 pads are electroadhesion generators, pneumatic (suction) machines, centrifugal (air blowing devices that can temporarily transform the Gecko into a flying robot), multiple microspines and a variety of sensors ranging from x-ray to ultrasound.. A wall may be slippery, rough, smooth or rocky but the Gecko will have no problem in traversing it. The tail component is removable and can be replaced with a variety of devices depending on its mission. The tail can be equipped with sensors that can assess a wall’s integrity, a paint blower or 3D printer that can change a building’s façade, or spying devices with exotic weaponry. March of Robots 2022: Day 26 – Wall Inspiration: Gecko #marchofrobots #marchofrobots2022 #createwithxencelabs #marchofrobots2025wall #marchofrobots2022day26 #art #artph #drawingchallenge #artchallenge #cartoonchallenge #drawing #digitaldrawing #illustration #illustrationartists #character #characterdesign #characterdrawing #robot #robotdesign #characterdrawing #drawingart #illustration #doodles #doodle @chocolatesoop #wall #lizard #gecko https://www.instagram.com/p/CbkD97lpb8N/?utm_medium=tumblr

[materialsscienceandengineering]

You don't need glue to hold these materials together—just electricity

Is there a way to stick hard and soft materials together without any tape, glue or epoxy? A new study published in ACS Central Science shows that applying a small voltage to certain objects forms chemical bonds that securely link the objects together. Reversing the direction of electron flow easily separates the two materials. This electroadhesion effect could help create biohybrid robots, improve biomedical implants and enable new battery technologies. When an adhesive is used to attach two things, it binds the surfaces either through mechanical or electrostatic forces. But sometimes those attractions or bonds are difficult, if not impossible, to undo. As an alternative, reversible adhesion methods are being explored, including electroadhesion (EA). Though the term is used to describe a few different phenomena, one definition involves running an electric current through two materials causing them to stick together, thanks to attractions or chemical bonds. Previously, Srinivasa Raghavan and colleagues demonstrated that EA can hold soft, oppositely charged materials together, and even be used to build simple structures. This time, they wanted to see if EA could reversibly bind a hard material, such as graphite, to a soft material, such as animal tissue.

Read more.

[sangklp]

RT @WevolverApp: A micro-robot whose electroadhesive foot pads, origami ankle joints, and specially engineered walking gait allow it to climb on upside-down conductive surfaces, like the inside walls of a commercial jet engine. Full article: https://t.co/D10vCzgaBt Project by: Wyss Institute https://t.co/FfQxJOqsBy https://www.youtube.com/c/lifesang

[bitprime-blog]

MIT Devises 'Electroadhesive Stamp' to Build Ultra-Complex Circuit Boards This ...https://bitprime.co/mit-devises-electroadhesive-stamp-to-build-ultra-complex-circuit-boards/?feed_id=10973&_unique_id=5da6d5a7dd6b7

[raymondmccullers]

‘Electroadhesive’ stamp picks up and puts down microscopic structures

New technique could enable assembly of circuit boards and displays with more minute components. ‘Electroadhesive’ stamp picks up and puts down microscopic structures syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.blogspot.com/

[harvardseas]

Special series: the path untrodden part three⠀ ⠀ Follow along as Lyra Wanzer, S.B. ‘19, concentrating in mechanical engineering, builds an electroadhesive treaded robot for her senior capstone project⠀ ⠀ After many iterations on the tread design throughout the semester, Wanzer ultimately used a design with multiple layers. In our most recent update with Wanzer, she was working through different prototypes of the drive system alignment that connected the treads of her robot. In her final product, she has added end caps to prevent the wheels from sliding sideways and optimized the length of couplings between the wheels to secure the drive system. She made carbon fiber bushings, bearings to reduce friction between different parts of the car. She constructed the wheels of the robot from two layers of compliant foam. Wanzer tried both a concave and a convex tread and found that a convex tread worked best for her robot.⠀ ⠀ In the final stages of building her robot, Wanzer evaluated the total mass of the robot, the wheel torque, the voltages, and safety. She added a top plate to make the chassis, the base frame, rigid to protect the robot during testing. Then she studied the speed of the robot while it pulled a load of varying mass behind it to optimize her system. As the angle of the inclined surface increased, the speed of her robot decreased. Moving on a 30 degree incline, her robot was much faster than other existing electroadhesive robots.⠀ ⠀ In the future, she would like to see further work done in making the robot lighter and better able to hold a greater load. Wanzer intends to publish her work to share her design with the robotics community. Grateful for the mentorship she received from her lab, the course staff, and the @seasallabs , Wanzer speaks highly of the learning experience of the capstone project. Like her robot, she looks forward to exploring new ground and embarking on the next steps of her journey in robotics.⠀ #HarvardSEAS #LifeatSEAS #Harvard19 #student #robot #project (at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx2HOL4H9tQ/?igshid=2x5thrsy6i95

[fumpkins]

Robots with Sticky Feet Can Climb Up, Down, and All Around

HAMR-E uses electroadhesive pads on its feet and a special gait pattern to climb on vertical, inverted, and curved surfaces, like the inside of this jet engine. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Researchers at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a micro-robot whose electroadhesive foot pads, origami ankle joints, and specially engineered walking gait allow it to climb on vertical and upside-down conductive surfaces, like the inside walls of a commercial jet engine. The work is reported in Science Robotics.

“Now that these robots can explore in three dimensions instead of just moving back and forth on a flat surface, there’s a whole new world that they can move around in and engage with,” said first author Sébastien de Rivaz, a former Research Fellow at the Wyss Institute and SEAS who now works at Apple. “They could one day enable non-invasive inspection of hard-to-reach areas of large machines, saving companies time and money and making those machines safer.”

The new robot, called HAMR-E (Harvard Ambulatory Micro-Robot with Electroadhesion), was developed in response to a challenge issued to the Harvard Microrobotics Lab by Rolls-Royce, which asked if it would be possible to design and build an army of micro-robots capable of climbing inside parts of its jet engines that are inaccessible to human workers. Existing climbing robots can tackle vertical surfaces, but experience problems when trying to climb upside-down, as they require a large amount of adhesive force to prevent them from falling.

HAMR-E, created in collaboration with Rolls-Royce, is a micro-robot that uses electroadhesion to scale vertical, inverted, and curved surfaces, allowing it to explore spaces that are too small for humans. HAMR-E could one day be used to inspect jet engines and other complicated machines without requiring them to be taken apart. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University.

The team based HAMR-E on one of its existing micro-robots, HAMR, whose four legs enable it to walk on flat surfaces and swim through water. While the basic design of HAMR-E is similar to HAMR, the scientists had to solve a series of challenges to get HAMR-E to successfully stick to and traverse the vertical, inverted, and curved surfaces that it would encounter in a jet engine.

First, they needed to create adhesive foot pads that would keep the robot attached to the surface even when upside-down, but also release to allow the robot to “walk” by lifting and placing its feet. The pads consist of a polyimide-insulated copper electrode, which enables the generation of electrostatic forces between the pads and the underlying conductive surface. The foot pads can be easily released and re-engaged by switching the electric field on and off, which operates at a voltage similar to that required to move the robot’s legs, thus requiring very little additional power. The electroadhesive foot pads can generate shear forces of 5.56 grams and normal forces of 6.20 grams – more than enough to keep the 1.48-gram robot from sliding down or falling off its climbing surface. In addition to providing high adhesive forces, the pads were designed to be able to flex, thus allowing the robot to climb on curved or uneven surfaces.

HAMR-E is small but mighty, and could one day carry instruments and cameras to inspect small spaces. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

The scientists also created new ankle joints for HAMR-E that can rotate in three dimensions to compensate for rotations of its legs as it walks, allowing it to maintain its orientation on its climbing surface. The joints were manufactured out of layered fiberglass and polyimide, and folded into an origami-like structure that allows the ankles of all the legs to rotate freely, and to passively align with the terrain as HAMR-E climbs.

Finally, the researchers created a special walking pattern for HAMR-E, as it needs to have three foot pads touching a vertical or inverted surface at all times to prevent it from falling or sliding off. One foot releases from the surface, swings forward, and reattaches while the remaining three feet stay attached to the surface. At the same time, a small amount of torque is applied by the foot diagonally across from the lifted foot to keep the robot from moving away from the climbing surface during the leg-swinging phase. This process is repeated for the three other legs to create a full walking cycle, and is synchronized with the pattern of electric field switching on each foot.

When HAMR-E was tested on vertical and inverted surfaces, it was able to achieve more than one hundred steps in a row without detaching. It walked at speeds comparable to other small climbing robots on inverted surfaces and slightly slower than other climbing robots on vertical surfaces, but was significantly faster than other robots on horizontal surfaces, making it a good candidate for exploring environments that have a variety of surfaces in different arrangements in space. It is also able to perform 180-degree turns on horizontal surfaces.

HAMR-E also successfully maneuvered around a curved, inverted section of a jet engine while staying attached, and its passive ankle joints and adhesive foot pads were able to accommodate the rough and uneven features of the engine surface simply by increasing the electroadhesion voltage.

This iteration of HAMR-E is the first and most convincing step towards showing that this approach to a centimeter-scale climbing robot is possible, and that such robots could in the future be used to explore any sort of infrastructure, including buildings, pipes, engines, generators, and more

Robert Wood

The team is continuing to refine HAMR-E, and plans to incorporate sensors into its legs that can detect and compensate for detached foot pads, which will help prevent it from falling off of vertical or inverted surfaces. HAMR-E’s payload capacity is also greater than its own weight, opening the possibility of carrying a power supply and other electronics and sensors to inspect various environments. The team is also exploring options for using HAMR-E on non-conductive surfaces.

“This iteration of HAMR-E is the first and most convincing step towards showing that this approach to a centimeter-scale climbing robot is possible, and that such robots could in the future be used to explore any sort of infrastructure, including buildings, pipes, engines, generators, and more,” said corresponding author Robert Wood, Ph.D., who is a Founding Core Faculty member of the Wyss Institute as well as the Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS.

“While academic scientists are very good at coming up with fundamental questions to explore in the lab, sometimes collaborations with industrial scientists who understand real-world problems are required to develop innovative technologies that can be translated into useful products. We are excited to help catalyze these collaborations here at the Wyss Institute, and to see the breakthrough advances that emerge,” said  Wyss Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at SEAS.

This study is co-authored by Benjamin Goldberg, Ph.D., Neel Doshi, Kaushik Jayaram, Ph.D., and Jack Zhou from the Wyss Institute and Harvard SEAS.

Support for this research was contributed by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Rolls-Royce, and the US Army Research Office.

New post published on: https://www.livescience.tech/2018/12/24/robots-with-sticky-feet-can-climb-up-down-and-all-around/

[scitechman]

“Electroadhesive” Stamp Picks up and Puts down Microscopic Structures

“Electroadhesive” Stamp Picks up and Puts down Microscopic Structures

If you were to pry open your smartphone, you would see an array of electronic chips and components laid out across a circuit board, like a miniature city. Each component might contain even smaller “chiplets,” some no wider than a human hair. These elements are often assembled with robotic grippers designed to pick up the components and place them down in precise configurations.

As circuit…