Frost & Sullivan has awarded its 2006 Actuator Technology Product Innovation of the Year Award to Artificial Muscle (AMI), for the development of the Universal Muscle Actuator (UMA). UMA is based on AMI’s patented (EPAM) technology (electroactive polymer artificial muscle).
"Artificial Muscle EPAM-based UMA technology has the potential to revolutionise the small actuator industry because of its market-changing lightweight, high power density characteristics," says Frost & Sullivan research analyst Vishnu Sivadevan.
EPAM is also unique as it is efficient and has silent operation characteristics. The technology was originally conceived and developed at SRI International and in 2004, AMI was spun off to exclusively commercialise artificial muscle technology. The development of EPAM technology marks a milestone in the last 50 years of progress in the field of actuator technology as EPAM could serve as a mass alternative to existing linear actuator technologies.
Actuator technology is an indispensable component of virtually any device that requires movement. Small actuation systems are ubiquitous in applications that require high precision and reliability in the consumer electronics, medical device, automotive, and aerospace sectors because all demand light-weight, high-performance, highly-reliable actuators.
EPAM's emergence as a mass alternative to existing technologies is due to its elegant simplicity, superior performance and utility, and the numerous product configurations that can be built with it. According to Artificial Muscle, EPAM technology has greater power density than alternative smart material-based technologies, including magnetostrictive materials, piezoelectric ceramics, and shape memory alloys.
Actuators using EPAM can also be used to build pumps, valves, linear actuators, and generators for various applications as well as act as a sensor for pressure or displacement, it notes. The technology can be built into diaphragm actuators, planar actuators, roll linear actuators, and speaker actuators, and is clearly suited to a very broad range of applications.
"Actuator technology is progressing rapidly and is poised to create a revolution in a wide range of industries," says Sivadevan. For example, in the automotive industry, a high-end automobile may contain up to 200 actuators. Artificial Muscle's UMA technology would not only greatly enhance the implementation of drive-by-wire systems on a large scale, but also dramatically reduce the weight of future automobiles."
AMI has also generated great interest in the deployment of EPAM technology for clean energy generation. For example, the actuator could be used to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy for energy generation from wave or wind power.
Design guides and a technology white paper are available at the company's website, www.artificialmuscle.com
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