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Soft Material-Actuator

We have developed a unique self-contained, electrically-driven, soft, robust composite material-actuator that combines the elastic properties of a polymeric matrix and the extreme volume change accompanying liquid–vapor transition. The material combines a high strain (up to 900%) and correspondingly high stress (up to 1.3 MPa) with low density (0.84 g cm−3). Along with its extremely low cost (about 3 cents per gram), simplicity of fabrication, ability to be 3D-Printed, environment-friendliness, these properties could enable new kinds of electrically driven entirely soft robots. The research was published in Nature Communications.

Updates

Predicting soft actuation behavior using Machine Learning

A long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network model was successfully implemented to predict the actuation force exerted in a uniform multi-cyclic actuation experiment.

The paper: Actuators 2020, 9(3), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/act9030062   -   July 28, 2020.

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3D-printing (and cover!)

Our work on 3D-printing ​of Silicone Composites has made it to the "3D-Printing and Additive Manufacturing" cover!

The paper: 3D-Printing and Additive Manufacturing, 6(6), pp. 309-318, 2019; 

https://doi.org/10.1089/3dp.2019.0116    -   December 16, 2019.

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3D-printing complex-shaped silicone and silicone-composite samples
3D-printing complex-shaped silicone and silicone-composite samples
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3D-printing and actuation of silicone/ethanol artificial muscle in silicone rubber skin
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Kirigami design of conductive fabric heater

See how kirigami design turns a non-stretchable fabric into a stretchable conductive heater: our paper was just published!

Actuators 2019, 8(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/act8010009 - January 21, 2019

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Our work won the Best Student Paper Award at RoboSoft 2018 in Livorno!!!

Now we can REJUVENATE the soft actuator!

MRS Communications paper on rejuvenation of soft material-actuator was published - February 21, 2018

We linked our material's  composition, microstructure, properties and performance!

Materials & Design paper on characterization of our composite material-actuator was published-              February 14, 2018

First All-Soft Material-Actuator! 

Our joint work with Prof. Kramer's lab (Yale University) has been accepted for publication in the Proceedings of IEEE Soft Robotics Conference RoboSoft 2018 (to be published on April 28, 2018)

Nature Communications paper was published!!!

The paper is in the TOP 1% of all papers in Nature Communications, and in the TOP 5% of all manuscripts, scored by Altrmetric! September 17, 2017

CUNY.TV has aired a Science&U! episode with

Aslan Miriyev and Hod Lipson! January 2018

Watch Aslan Miriyev's talk at the Columbia Tech Ventures "Frontiers in Robotics" event! October 2017

Professional Communities on Aslan Miriyev's Research

Mechanical Engineering 

Materials Engineering 

Aslan Miriyev's Research on the News (partial list)

​Related publications

1. Aslan Miriyev, Kenneth Stack, Hod Lipson, "Soft Material for Soft Actuators", Nature Communications, 8:596, 2017.

​2. Applied Patent: “Vapor pressure solid articles and methods for making and using the same”, Patent Application WO2017096068A1, Filed June 2017.

3. Aslan Miriyev, Gabriela Caires, Hod Lipson, "Functional properties of silicone/ethanol soft-actuator composites", Materials & Design, Volume 145, 2018, Pages 232-242.

4. Aslan Miriyev, Cesar Trujillo, Gabriela Caires, Hod Lipson, "Rejuvenation of soft material-actuator", MRS Communications, 2018, Pages 1-6.

5. R. Adam Bilodeau*, Aslan Miriyev*, Hod Lipson, Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, "All-Soft Material System for Strong Soft Actuators", 

IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics 2018 (Livorno, Italy), 2018 (* co-first authors).

6. Mark CartolanoBoxi Xia ,Aslan MiriyevHod Lipson, "Conductive Fabric Heaters for Heat-Activated Soft Actuators", 

Actuators 2019, 8(1), 9.

7. Aslan Miriyev, Boxi Xia, Jacob Joseph, Hod Lipson, "Additive manufacturing of Silicone Composites for Soft Actuation",          3D-Printing and Additive Manufacturing, Volume 6, Issue 6, 2019, Pages 309-318, 2019.

8. Boxi Xia*, Aslan Miriyev*, Cesar Trujillo, Neil Chen, Mark Cartolano, Shivaniprashant Vartak, Hod Lipson, “Improving the actuation speed and multi-cyclic actuation characteristics of silicone/ethanol soft actuators“, Actuators, Volume 9, Issue 3, 2020, 62 (* co-first authors).

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