Remotely driven electro-active paper actuator by modulated microwaves

초록

This paper reports a remotely-driven electro-active paper (EAPap) actuator by modulated microwaves. So far we have demonstrated a remotely driven EAPap actuator by means of rectenna and control circuit. The rectenna consists of dipole antenna and rectifying circuit, which converts microwave to dc power. Once microwaves are incident on the dipole rectenna, it converts microwaves into a dc power and the control circuit feeds the power to the EAPap actuator by alternating it so as to produce a bending motion of the EAPap actuator. However, due to the power consumption of the control circuit, the remotely-driven actuator system requires more dc power to activate the control circuit. Thus, we propose a remotely-driven EAPap actuator that does not require the control circuit. Instead of the control circuit, microwaves are modulated with the control signal, and by rectifying the modulated microwaves with the rectenna, the control signal can be regenerated for activating the EAPap actuator. Detailed modulated microwave, rectenna design, fabrication, characterization and the actuation of rectenna-EAPap by modulated microwave are explained. © 2011 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).