Research Projects

Owing to the rising demand for automation in the industries, soft robotics has received wide attention in various application sectors including healthcare, biometric monitoring, textiles and navigation systems. Designing shape adaptable fingered robotic grippers with artificial skin features and complex sensing abilities using elastomeric system mimicking human hands is one among the various soft robotics that has attained significant research importance in recent years as it provides effective solution in grasping delicate, complex and fragile objects safely. Inspite of the significant advancements in the existing soft robot technologies, designing grippers with the ability in handling flat as well as complex deformable objects is still remains as the major challenge. Creating soft robotic grippers based on thin elastomer fingers with intrinsic electroadhesion characteristics and electrostatic actuation ability paves a path to address the existing challenges. Effective grasping of the delicate objects can be achieved on applying voltage on the elastomeric soft fingers as it generates normal and shear forces between the two contacting surfaces. However, designing device-level electroadhesive for soft robotic applications is still in the budding stage due to the limited availability of materials that can render excellent electroadhesion force. Also, soft grippers fabricated using electroadhesion technology generally employ electronic conductors that loss its conductive paths under large strain, thereby loosing grasping ability. The proposed research aims to address the existing issues of the electroadhesion technology by replacing electronic conductors employed in the soft robotic grippers with ionic gel systems that enables effective ion transportation even under hyperelastic deformation. Precise macromolecular design based on amphiphilic poly (guanidium sulfate) ionic gels coupled with dielectric polyurethane elastomers, rendering outstanding cycle stability, self-healability and fatigue resistance will be prepared through the proposed research. Poly (guanidium sulfate) will be synthesized the molecular precursors derived from waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics. Attempt will also be made in improving dielectric properties of the PU elastomeric system by incorporating desired amount graphitic carbon nitride as the nanofillers, which will be optimized through mechanical and dielectric characterization. Device-level self-healing iontronic adhesive tape with multiple patterned configuration will be fabricated using the PU dielectric elastomer composites as the substrate and the poly (guanidium sulfate) ionic gels as the electrodes. Detailed electromechanical characterization will be done to understand its performance characteristics. Finally, an attempt will be made in designing a prototype of self-healing iontronic adhesive soft grippers using gel-elastomer composite system that can capture soft and deformable items.