Full integration of a dielectric elastomer actuator with a flexible 1 kV thin-film transistor

We report on the integration of a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) operating at 1 kV with a flexible metal oxide high-voltage thin film transistor (HVTFT). With only a 30 V gate voltage, the HVTFT controls the kV voltage drop across the DEA, thus providing low-voltage control over the DEA actuation. Both the DEA and the HVTFT are stable up to over 105 cycles. This integrated DEA+HVTFT actuation strategy represents a key building block for smart complex compliant machines, for which multiple independent soft actuators are required. An array of many such building blocks can be driven by a single DC kV power supply, with each DEA individually addressed with low-voltage signal outputs, for example in a row/column architecture. Since the switching logic now operates at low voltage, one can integrate high-level control in multi degree of freedom soft DEA robots.