MIT News  March 2, 2021 Current state-of-the-art subgram microaerial-vehicles (MAVs) are predominately powered by rigid actuators such as piezoelectric ceramics, but they have low fracture strength (120 MPa) and failure strain (0.3%). Although the existing systems can achieve a high lift-to-weight ratio, they have not demonstrated insect-like maneuvers such as somersault or rapid collision recovery. An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, Harvard University, Hong Kong) has developed a 665 mg aerial robot that is powered by novel dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) which achieves high power density (1.2 kW/kg) and relatively high transduction efficiency (37%). They incorporated this soft actuator […]