Part I Introduction

1. Progress and Current Status of Materials and Properties of Soft Actuators

2. Current Status of Applications and Markets of Soft Actuators

Kinji Asaka and Kayo Nakamura

Part II Materials of Soft Actuators: Thermo-Driven Soft Actuators

3. Electromagnetic Heating

Takeshi Yamauchi

4. Thermo-Responsive Nanofiber Mats Fabricated by Electrospinning

Hidenori Okuzaki

5. Evolution of Self-Oscillating Polymer Gels as Autonomous Soft Actuators

Ryo Yoshida

6. Polyrotaxane Actuators

Abu Bin Imran, Mohammad Harun-Ur-Rashid, and Yukikazu Takeoka

Part III Materials of Soft Actuators: Electro-Driven Soft Actuators

7. Ionic Conductive Polymers

Kunitomo Kikuchi and Shigeki Tsuchitani

8. Conducting Polymers

9. Humidity-Sensitive Conducting Polymer Actuators

Hidenori Okuzaki

Takushi Sugino, Kenji Kiyohara, and Kinji Asaka

11. Ion Gels for Ionic Polymer Actuators

12. Ionic Liquid/Polyurethane/PEDOT: PSS Composite Actuators

Hidenori Okuzaki

13. Dielectric Gels

Toshihiro Hirai

14. Dielectric Elastomers

Seiki Chiba

15. Piezoelectric Polymers

16. Thermal and Electrical Actuation of Liquid Crystal Elastomers/Gels

Kenji Urayama

Part IV Materials of Soft Actuators: Light-Driven Soft Actuators

17. Spiropyran-Functionalized Hydrogels

Kimio Sumaru, Toshiyuki Takagi, Shinji Sugiura, and Toshiyuki Kanamori

18. Photomechanical Energy Conversion with Cross-Linked Liquid-Crystalline Polymers

Jun-ichi Mamiya

19. Photoredox Reaction

Tetsu Tatsuma

Part V Materials of Soft Actuators: Magneto-Driven Soft Actuators

20. Magnetic Fluid Composite Gels

Toshihiro Hirai

21. Magnetic Particle Composite Gels

Tetsu Mitsumata

Part VI Modeling

22. Molecular Mechanism of Electrically Induced Volume Change of Porous Electrodes

Kenji Kiyohara, Takushi Sugino, and Kinji Asaka

23. Computational Modeling of Mechanical Sensors Using Ionic Electro-Active Polymers

Yutaka Toi and Seongwon Yoo

24. Distributed Parameter System Modeling

Kentaro Takagi, Gou Nishida, Bernhard Maschke, and Kinji Asaka

25. Control of Electro-Active Polymer Actuators with Considering Characteristics Changes

Norihiro Kamamichi

26. Motion Design-A Gel Robot Approach

Mihoko Otake

27. Motion Control

Minoru Hashimoto

28. IPMC Actuation Mechanisms and Multi-Physical Modeling

Zicai Zhu, Hualing Chen, and Longfei Chang

29. Sensing Properties and Physical Model of Ionic Polymer

Zicai Zhu, Hualing Chen, and Yanjie Wang

30. Modelling of Dielectric Elastomer Actuator

Bo Li, Hualing Chen, and Guimin Chen

31. Modelling of Dielectric Gel using Multi-Physics Coupling Theory

Bo Li, Longfei Chang, and Yanjie Wang

32. Modeling and Control of Fishing-Line/Sewing-Thread Artificial Muscles (Twisted and Coiled Polymer Fibers, TCPFs)

Kentaro Takagi, Norihiro Kamamichi, Ken Masuya,

Part VII Applications

33. Underwater Soft Robots

Kentaro Takagi, Zhi-Wei Luo, and Kinji Asaka

34. IPMC Actuator-Based Multifunctional Underwater Microrobots

Shuxi
About the Author:

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.