Rapid Fabrication of Electro-Adhesive Devices with Inkjet Printed Electrodes

This letter proposes a procedure for the rapid prototyping and on-demand manufacturing of thin film flexible electro-adhesive devices (EADs) made with a commercial polyimide dielectric layer, inkjet printed interdigitated silver electrodes and blade coated silicone elastomer encapsulation backing. As a proof demonstration, flexible thin-film EADs featuring 9.6 cm2 active area, 315 μm thickness and 0.7 g weight have been manufactured and tested over different adhering substrates showing peak adhesive shear stresses of up to 56.67 kPa, fast response time (11 ms for initial activation and 0.3 s for full electrification) and little energy requirements (from 1.3 mJ for initial activation to 20 mJ for full electrification and with a subsequent power consumption of about 1 mW for long-term grasp holding). Practical application of the manufactured EADs within a gripper for the grasping and handling of real objects that include a glass bottle, a hollow carbon fiber tube, a cardboard box, a box with thin polypropylene envelope and a polypropylene bottle is also demonstrated.