MIT News  June 21, 2022 Inspired by fireflies an international team of researchers (USA – MIT, China) developed a 650 mg aerial robot powered by four electroluminescent (EL) dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) that have distinct colors and patterns. They also tweaked the fabrication process so the actuators could emit multicolored and patterned light. To fabricate a glowing actuator, they incorporated electroluminescent zinc sulphate particles into the elastomer. During robot flight, a strong (>40 V/μm) and high frequency (400 Hz) electric field is generated within the DEA, exciting the EL particles to emit light. As they are too light to carry […]