A comparison of critical shear force in low-voltage, all-polymer electroadhesives to a basic friction model

Elastomer-based electroadhesion can be an effective method to provide tunable adhesion between robots and grasped objects or surfaces. However, there has been little work to develop models of electroadhesion and characterization of adhesive performance relative to these models. In this paper, a basic friction model is proposed to describe the critical shear force for a single electrode electroadhesive fabricated from conductive PDMS encased in parylene. The use of parylene results in thin dielectrics that require only tens of Volts to achieve shear pressures greater than 100 kPa. The experimental results gathered by characterizing voltage, dielectric thickness, adhesive area, and adhesive thickness follow the trends predicted by theory with some important deviations that are studied using high speed video capture of the soft adhesive failure.