Portable, High-Frequency, and High-Voltage Control Circuits for Untethered Miniature Robots Driven by Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

2025-02-10

AI Summary

To address the challenge of lightweight high-frequency, high-voltage power supply for wireless actuation of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) in microrobots, this work proposes a portable high-voltage control circuit design: a low-voltage resistive series–parallel topology integrated with a miniature high-voltage DC–AC inverter, enabling compact (2.5 g), high-frequency (0–1 kHz), high-voltage (up to 1.8 kV) actuation. It presents the first untethered 42-g robot integrating DEA-driven locomotion, autonomous crawling, and embedded real-time video telemetry. A novel cylindrical DEA configuration is introduced to enhance actuation efficiency and structural compatibility. Experiments demonstrate stable 15-Hz crawling on desktop surfaces and within narrow pipes, concurrently achieving 720p@30 fps wireless video transmission. This work establishes a scalable hardware paradigm for fully wireless, closed-loop control of soft microrobots.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Motion and Path Planning
• Machine Learning: Hardware-aware ML
• Computer Vision: Adversarial Attacks & Robustness

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Responsible Web: Data and user privacy-enhancing technologies for the Web
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Efficiency and scalability of Web search engines

Abstract

In this work, we propose a high-voltage, high-frequency control circuit for the untethered applications of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). The circuit board leverages low-voltage resistive components connected in series to control voltages of up to 1.8 kV within a compact size, suitable for frequencies ranging from 0 to 1 kHz. A single-channel control board weighs only 2.5 g. We tested the performance of the control circuit under different load conditions and power supplies. Based on this control circuit, along with a commercial miniature high-voltage power converter, we construct an untethered crawling robot driven by a cylindrical DEA. The 42-g untethered robots successfully obtained crawling locomotion on a bench and within a pipeline at a driving frequency of 15 Hz, while simultaneously transmitting real-time video data via an onboard camera and antenna. Our work provides a practical way to use low-voltage control electronics to achieve the untethered driving of DEAs, and therefore portable and wearable devices.

Problem

• High-voltage control circuit for DEAs
• Untethered miniature robot design
• Portable and wearable device integration

Innovation

• High-voltage control circuit
• Compact low-voltage components
• Untethered DEA-driven robot