A symmetrical DC-to-DC converter for capacitive energy swinging

Abstract

Soft Robotics is a specific robotics subfield that is involved in building robots from highly compliant materials like those found in living organisms. The energy management system is a fundamental aspect of evaluating the energy-autonomy of soft robots. To date, energy management systems for soft robots with ionic capacitive laminate (ICL) actuators are ineffective and cannot re-use energy, which is irrevocably lost after, each cycle of the robot actuation. Thus, there is a need to provide a suitable energy-conditioning circuit that would allow the re-use of energy between several ICLs at once. In this thesis, we propose a door to energy management solution through design: asymmetrical bidirectional DC-to-DC converter that could transfer energy between ICLs for prolonged power-autonomous operation. The proposed solution has the scope to revise the current soft robots in terms of energy management. The idea of increasing energy transfer efficiency will result in efficient soft robots in rescue missions (for instance), that will have a significant impact in the world.