Dielectric elastomers as actuators for upper limb prosthetics: Challenges and opportunities
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Recent research has indicated that consumers of upper limb prostheses desire lighter-weight, anthropomorphic devices. The potential of dielectric elastomer (DE) actuators to better meet the design priorities of prosthesis users is explored. Current challenges are critically reviewed with respect to (1) durability, (2) precision control, (3) energy consumption, and (4) anthropomorphic implementation. The key points arising from the literature review are illustrated with empirical examples of the strain performance and durability of one of the most popular DEs, VHB 4910. Practical application of DE actuators in powered upper extremity prosthetics is at present impeded by poor durability and susceptibility to air-borne contaminants, unreliable control owing to viscoelasticity, hysteresis, stress relaxation and creep mechanisms, high voltage requirements, and insufficient stress and strain performance within the confines of anthropomorphic size, weight, and function. Our review suggests that the implementation of DE actuators in powered upper extremity prosthetics is not feasible at present but worthy of reevaluation as the materials advance.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".