I-Corps: ESTAT Electroadhesive Clutch

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project will be reducing the required weight and power consumption of robotics hardware. A particularly promising field is in the domain of human-machine interaction, including prostheses, haptic devices, exoskeletons, and other wearable technologies designed to assist users with disabilities or augment the performance of able-bodied users. Current devices are severely limited by the weight, power consumption, and power output of conventional actuators and transmissions. Using clutched springs to improve the performance of these devices could dramatically reduce their weight, leading to more comfortable and effective motion assistance. Products based on the company's electroadhesive clutch could also offer improved energy efficiency and versatility in industrial robot arms. Much of the energy consumed by large industrial arms stems from supporting the body weight and moving the arm?s inertia. Using electroadhesive clutches and springs to provide adjustable gravity cancelling and to harvest and return kinetic energy would significantly reduce energy costs. Additionally, electrically controllable transmissions could enable control mode switching for performing a wider range of tasks, potentially reducing the amount of time required to manufacture products.This I-Corps project will focus on the commercial potential of the company's novel electroadhesive clutch prototype that weighs 10 times less and consumes 1000 times less power than other clutch technologies. Conventional clutches operate using electro-magnetic solenoids or magneto-rheological fluid, both of which require heavy components and significant electrical power to operate. The company's electroadhesive clutch uses thin, lightweight materials and operates with a fundamentally different technique, allowing us to transmit up to 180 N of force with a device that weighs 15 grams, consumes 3.2 mW of power, and activates at 320 V DC. The activation/deactivation times of the company's electroadhesive clutch are 20 ms, which is comparable with the best conventional clutches. We have also performed a fatigue test demonstrating more than 3 million loading cycles. The company recently conducted an extensive experimental study of the effects of design parameters on these performance metrics, and now has a strong understanding of the appropriate design of clutches for a broad range of applications. The company's clutch has the potential to improve the performance of existing products that use clutches and enable new designs that would be infeasible when subjected to the limits of traditional clutches.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.