Modular Piezoresistive Smart Textile for State Estimation of Cloths

Shape Memory Alloys in Textile Platform: Smart Textile-Composite Actuator and Its Application to Soft Grippers

In recent years, many researchers have aimed to construct robotic soft grippers that can handle fragile or unusually shaped objects without causing damage. This study proposes a smart textile-composite actuator and its application to a soft robotic gripper. An active fiber and an inactive fiber are combined together using knitting techniques to manufacture a textile actuator. The active fiber is a shape memory alloy (SMA) that is wire-wrapped with conventional fibers, and the inactive fiber is a knitting yarn. A knitted textile structure is flexible, with an excellent structure retention ability and high compliance, which is suitable for developing soft grippers. A driving source of the actuator is the SMA wire, which deforms under heating due to the shape memory effect. Through experiments, the course-to-wale ratio, the number of bundling SMA wires, and the driving current value needed to achieve the maximum deformation of the actuator were investigated. Three actuators were stitched together to make up each finger of the gripper, and layer placement research was completed to find the fingers' suitable bending angle for object grasping. Finally, the gripping performance was evaluated through a test of grasping various object shapes, which demonstrated that the gripper could successfully lift flat/spherical/uniquely shaped objects.

Evaluation of Relative Permittivity and Loss Factor of 3D Printing Materials for Use in RF Electronic Applications

3D printing is more and more often used for the development and manufacturing of electronic devices and components. These applications require knowledge about the dielectric properties of the used materials—in particular minimal and stable values of relative permittivity and dielectric losses. The paper deals with the testing of the relative permittivity and loss factor of materials as follows: PLA (in three dye modifications), PET-G, and ABS and ASA in the frequency range 1–100 MHz. It was found that relative permittivity varied between 2.88–3.48 and the loss factor was in the range 0.03–4.31%. In terms of relative permittivity, all tested materials manifested a slight decline with increasing frequency. Concerning loss factor PLA (colorless) and ABS were proven to be more suitable for electrotechnical application due to the lower values and frequency dependences of the loss factor. Different results were observed in PLA-Silver and PLA-Metallic green. These materials showed a higher frequency dependency of loss factor with increasing frequency. The reasonable influence of added dyes was found. A study of the internal structure of the tested materials has not proven any significant defects (air gaps) that could affect the material’s dielectric properties.