Soft Actuators: Materials, Modeling, Applications, and Future Perspectives

This book is the second edition of Soft Actuators, originally published in 2014, with 12 chapters added to the first edition. The subject of this new edition is current comprehensive research and development of soft actuators, covering interdisciplinary study of materials science, mechanics, electronics, robotics, and bioscience. The book includes contemporary research of actuators based on biomaterials for their potential in future artificial muscle technology. Readers will find detailed and useful information about materials, methods of synthesis, fabrication, and measurements to study soft actuators. Additionally, the topics of materials, modeling, and applications not only promote the further research and development of soft actuators, but bring benefits for utilization and industrialization. This volume makes generous use of color figures, diagrams, and photographs that provide easy-to-understand descriptions of the mechanisms, apparatus, and motions of soft actuators. Also, in this second edition the chapters on modeling, materials design, and device design have been given a wider scope and made easier to comprehend, which will be helpful in practical applications of soft actuators. Readers of this work can acquire the newest technology and information about basic science and practical applications of flexible, lightweight, and noiseless soft actuators, which differ from conventional mechanical engines and electric motors. This new edition of Soft Actuators will inspire readers with fresh ideas and encourage their research and development, thus opening up a new field of applications for the utilization and industrialization of soft actuators.

Kinji Asaka received his Ph.D. degree in Science from Kyoto University in 1990. He is currently a Group Leader of Hybrid Actuator Group, Inorganic Functional Material Research Institute at AIST. His current research interests include interfacial electrochemistry and polymer actuators. He is a member of the Society of Polymer Science, Japan and the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers.

Hidenori Okuzaki received his Ph.D. degree in Science from Hokkaido University in 1994. Since 1994, he has been working on organic electronics using conductive polymers as an assistant professor of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Yamanashi. He has been an associate professor in 2003 and he has dealt with conducting micro- and nano-fibers, and organic field-effect transistors. Since 2014, he has been a professor of the Graduate Faculty of Interdisciplinary Research, University of Yamanashi and he has been focusing on the synthesis of highly conductive polymers and applications to soft sensors and actuators for organic robotics.