Microheater Arrays to Modulate Stiffness for Tunable Friction

Student's name: Asantewaa Nyanteh Name of Home institution: University of Maryland NNCI Site: MANTH @ University of Pennsylvania REU Principal Investigator: Dr. Kevin Turner REU Mentors: Christopher Stabile, Daelan Roosa Abstract: Friction defines how humans interact with their environment. It applies to a wide variety of engineered systems, yet its application is limited with robotic haptics. In recent years, methods of applying dynamically tunable friction to robotic systems via the use of thermally-modulated stiffness has been widely studied. There is now evidence that this may be accomplished by applying micro-scale heating systems to a thin layer of shape memory polymer (SMP). An array of microheaters have the ability to provide a low power-consumption method of thermally stimulating a small area in a quick and controlled manner. SMPs soften and easily deform when exposed to thermal stimuli above a specific temperature. To this effect, an array of microheaters were previously designed and fabricated using a newly-developed nanofabrication method. This research explores the characteristics of those microheaters, their ability to alter the mechanical properties of SMPs, and investigates adjustments that may further optimize this system.