STTR Phase I: An Actuated Skin for Robotic Facial Expressions

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I research program proposes a novel concept for actuating artificial human-like skin. The application of the artificial skin in numerous applications such as robotic faces, prosthetics and medical simulation devices, animatronics, and high-end toys has been limited because of the lack of adequate muscle-like technologies. A solution to this problem is a novel composite actuator, a hybrid of micro piezoelectric actuators and a porous elastomer which will exhibit several characteristics of natural muscle tissues. The key to these advances is a new technique called structured porosity elastomer manufacturing (SPEM). The objectives are to determine the effect of pore geometry on the material properties in porous elastomers, use this understanding for optimization of the porous network, to fabricate the optimized pore-structure in elastomers by developing a hybrid of rapid-prototyping and injection molding processes, to identify the synthesis issues required for embedding of the piezoelectric actuators in the porous elastomer, and to fabricate the robotic face integrated with novel motion control electronics for driving micro piezoelectric actuators and ultrasonic motors. This research will lead to the fundamental understanding of piezo-actuated structured porous elastomer composite actuators as artificial muscles, their manufacturing technologies, and supporting technologies including drivers, wiring and anchoring. This understanding will be helpful in producing a wide array of bio-inspired mechanical devices that are actuated in the manner of muscles. The development of hybrid of rapid-prototyping of 3D sacrificial material and micro-arrays of piezoactuators, by means of micro-robotic gripper arrayswill provide a practical solution for mass production of active, synthetic soft tissues.