98,458 research outputs found

    Self-healing materials for soft-matter machines and electronics

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    The emergence of soft machines and electronics creates new opportunities to engineer robotic systems that are mechanically compliant, deformable, and safe for physical interaction with the human body. Progress, however, depends on new classes of soft multifunctional materials that can operate outside of a hard exterior and withstand the same real-world conditions that human skin and other soft biological materials are typically subjected to. As with their natural counterparts, these materials must be capable of self-repair and healing when damaged to maintain the longevity of the host system and prevent sudden or permanent failure. Here, we provide a perspective on current trends and future opportunities in self-healing soft systems that enhance the durability, mechanical robustness, and longevity of soft-matter machines and electronics

    The Relationship Between the Change Management and the Operational Excellence in Electrical and Electronics Manufacturing Companies

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    Purpose The purpose this paper is to examine the relationship between the change management and the operational excellence in the manufacturing companies (i.e. electrical and electronics). Design/ methodology/ approach This study utilizes causal study using survey methods to ascertain the relationship between the management of change and operational excellence. The samples of the population were selected for the Electrical and Electronics sectors using the systematic random sampling method. Findings The analysis found significant positive relationships between organic structure, operations strategy, transformational leadership style and human resource practices on operational excellence. The operations strategy influenced the most on the operational excellence. Research implications The results of this study could promote a better understanding of the operational excellence in the electrical and electronics industry and its implications for activities concerning operation management and change management. Therefore, the recommendation to management is to establish policy, systems, and processes by integrating both hard elements (structure and strategy) and soft elements (leadership and human resource) in a strategic planning of the companies. This study is hoped to contribute to a body of knowledge, in termsof the insight into an achievement of the operational excellence. As it focuses on a proper integration of organic structure, operations strategy, transformational leadership style and human resource practices

    DEVELOPMENT OF A NANOCOMPOSITE SENSOR AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEM FOR MONITORING OF LOCOMOTION OF A SOFT EARTHWORM ROBOT

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    The ability to detect external stimuli and perceive the surrounding areas represents a key feature of modern soft robotic systems, used for exploration of harsh environments. Although people have developed various types of biomimetic soft robots, no integratedsensor system is available to provide feedback locomotion. Here, a stretchable nanocomposite strain sensor with integrated wireless electronics to provide a feedbackloop locomotion of a soft robotic earthworm is presented. The ultrathin and soft strain sensor based on a carbon nanomaterial and a low-modulus silicone elastomer allows for a seamless integration with the body of the soft robot, accommodating large strains derived from bending, stretching, and physical interactions with obstacles. A scalable, costeffective, screen-printing method manufactures an array of strain sensors that are conductive and stretchable over 100% with a gauge factor over 38. An array of stretchable nanomembrane interconnectors enables a reliable connection between soft strain sensors and wireless electronics, while tolerating the robot’s multi-modal movements. A set of computational and experimental studies of soft materials, stretchable mechanics, and hybrid packaging provides key design factors for a reliable, nanocomposite sensor system. The miniaturized wireless circuit, embedded in the robot joint, offers a real-time monitoring of strain changes on the earthworm skin. Collectively, the soft sensor system shows a great potential to be integrated with other flexible, stretchable electronics for applications in soft robotics, wearable devices, and human-machine interfaces.M.S

    The Manufacture of Unbreakable Bionics via Multifunctional and Self-Healing Silk-Graphene Hydrogels

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    Biomaterials capable of transmitting signals over longer distances than those in rigid electronics can open new opportunities for humanity by mimicking the way tissues propagate information. For seamless mirroring of the human body, they also have to display conformability to its curvilinear architecture, as well as, reproducing native-like mechanical and electrical properties combined with the ability to self-heal on demand like native organs and tissues. Along these lines, a multifunctional composite is developed by mixing silk fibroin and reduced graphene oxide. The material is coined "CareGum" and capitalizes on a phenolic glue to facilitate sacrificial and hierarchical hydrogen bonds. The hierarchal bonding scheme gives rise to high mechanical toughness, record-breaking elongation capacity of approximate to 25 000%, excellent conformability to arbitrary and complex surfaces, 3D printability, a tenfold increase in electrical conductivity, and a fourfold increase in Young's modulus compared to its pristine counterpart. By taking advantage of these unique properties, a durable and self-healing bionic glove is developed for hand gesture sensing and sign translation. Indeed, CareGum is a new advanced material with promising applications in fields like cyborganics, bionics, soft robotics, human-machine interfaces, 3D-printed electronics, and flexible bioelectronics.Peer reviewe

    Nano energy for miniaturized systems

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    Skin mountable electronic devices are in a high-speed development at the crossroads of materials science, electronics, and computer science. Sophisticated functions, such as sensing, actuating, and computing, are integrated into a soft electronic device that can be firmly mounted to any place of human body. These advanced electronic devices are capable of yielding abilities for us whenever they are needed and even expanding our abilities beyond their natural limitations. Despite the great promise of skin mounted electronic devices, they still lack satisfactory power supplies that are safe and continuous. This Perspective discusses the prospects of the development of energy storage devices for the next generation skin mountable electronic devices based on their unique requirements on flexibility and miniaturized size

    Neuro-inspired electronic skin for robots

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    Touch is a complex sensing modality owing to large number of receptors (mechano, thermal, pain) nonuniformly embedded in the soft skin all over the body. These receptors can gather and encode the large tactile data, allowing us to feel and perceive the real world. This efficient somatosensation far outperforms the touch-sensing capability of most of the state-of-the-art robots today and suggests the need for neural-like hardware for electronic skin (e-skin). This could be attained through either innovative schemes for developing distributed electronics or repurposing the neuromorphic circuits developed for other sensory modalities such as vision and audio. This Review highlights the hardware implementations of various computational building blocks for e-skin and the ways they can be integrated to potentially realize human skin–like or peripheral nervous system–like functionalities. The neural-like sensing and data processing are discussed along with various algorithms and hardware architectures. The integration of ultrathin neuromorphic chips for local computation and the printed electronics on soft substrate used for the development of e-skin over large areas are expected to advance robotic interaction as well as open new avenues for research in medical instrumentation, wearables, electronics, and neuroprosthetics

    Comfort-Centered Design of a Lightweight and Backdrivable Knee Exoskeleton

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    This paper presents design principles for comfort-centered wearable robots and their application in a lightweight and backdrivable knee exoskeleton. The mitigation of discomfort is treated as mechanical design and control issues and three solutions are proposed in this paper: 1) a new wearable structure optimizes the strap attachment configuration and suit layout to ameliorate excessive shear forces of conventional wearable structure design; 2) rolling knee joint and double-hinge mechanisms reduce the misalignment in the sagittal and frontal plane, without increasing the mechanical complexity and inertia, respectively; 3) a low impedance mechanical transmission reduces the reflected inertia and damping of the actuator to human, thus the exoskeleton is highly-backdrivable. Kinematic simulations demonstrate that misalignment between the robot joint and knee joint can be reduced by 74% at maximum knee flexion. In experiments, the exoskeleton in the unpowered mode exhibits 1.03 Nm root mean square (RMS) low resistive torque. The torque control experiments demonstrate 0.31 Nm RMS torque tracking error in three human subjects.Comment: 8 pages, 16figures, Journa
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