In the early 19th century, Thomas Young (1805) and Pierre Simon Laplace (1806) published the concept of fluid surface tension, which made great contributions to the theory of surface tension. Since then, many scholars continued to examine physics and develop electrowetting-on-dielectric&nbsp;(EWOD) technology, hoping to effectively control the movement of droplets, with special emphasis placed on engineering applications of utilizing microchannels in biomedical and life science applications. To be able to maneuver the droplets with EWOD, dielectric and hydrophobic layers are required to prevent the droplets from short circuiting when the electrode moves, and the increase of hydrophobic layer leads to improvement of smoothness of the droplet movement. In this study, the electrowetting-on-dielectric technology is adopted for development of a prototypical droplet per se soft robot. Through the combination of finger electrode and electrowetting-on-dielectric&nbsp;technology, a carrier is designed. In the proposed design, the soft droplet can be driven by Arduino and LabVIEW control software, and the carrier can be moved effectively. The effective distance between the finger electrodes was identified through experiments aiming at changing of the droplet’s contact angle. Two kinds of droplet materials, namely PC and mixed liquid (PC, UV), respectively were examined.&nbsp; Through changing the contact angle and its strength at various voltage settings of 0-250V, the maximum force corresponding to suitable contact angle to be able to support the carrier effectively can be identified effectively. Finally, with the proposed control method, the carrier can be transported to the designated location when the droplets are carefully controlled by the EWOD.

Transporting Carrier With Droplets Driven by Electrowetting-on-Dielectric Effect

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ISPS/ISPS2021/volume/84799

ASME 2021 Information Storage and Processing Systems (ISPS2021)

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