Proposal of a multiple ER microactuator system using an alternating pressure source

This paper proposes and develops a multiple ER microactuator system using an alternating pressure source for in-pipe working micromachines, medical microrobots, and so on. A hydraulic microactuator is known to have high power density but also has the drawback of requiring large piping space for the supply and return of the working fluid. In this study, an alternating pressure system with synchronized control valves and a single pipe was proposed. As the control valves, simple ER microvalves were employed. The ER microvalves control an electro-rheological fluid (ERF) flow through its apparent viscosity change due to the applied electric field. In addition, a pressure transmitter is inserted between the pressure source and the ER valves, and low viscosity fluid such as water is used to transmit the alternating pressure. The use of the low viscosity fluid can reduce the diameter of the connecting pipe due to the low pressure loss. The proposed set-up is composed of multiple ER microactuators and an alternating pressure source; each ER microactuator consists of a pressure transmitter, two ER microvalves and a hydraulic microactuator. As the proposed system has half the number of pipes, of smaller diameter, compared with conventional hydraulic microactuator systems, it is suitable for a multiple actuator system. In this study, for verification of the working principle of the proposed system, we fabricated a large model of the system which consists of an ER finger 13 mm × 10 mm × 33 mm in size as a kind of ER microactuator and an alternating pressure source using a voice coil motor. Through experiments, we confirmed the tip displacement of 17 mm for the 16 mm-long movable part of the finger. Then, we fabricated a gripper using two ER fingers and confirmed its independent motion.