The team presented its work in the paper “High Performance Electroadhesive Clutches with Multilayered Architecture,” published Feb. 14 in the journal Science Advances. Colgate was the paper’s corresponding author, while Bekir Aksoy, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Robotics and Biosystems, was the paper’s first author.
While EA clutches offer unique benefits to robotics and human-computer interfaces, one of their biggest shortcomings has been their failure due to uneven force distribution when engaged.
To solve this, the team used advanced imaging techniques to monitor the clutch under stress. They made one side of the clutch transparent, allowing them to observe how it deformed and eventually failed. The team found that when the clutch was engaged,…