@article{piskarev_shintake_ramachandran_baugh_dickey_floreano_2020, title={Lighter and Stronger: Cofabricated Electrodes and Variable Stiffness Elements in Dielectric Actuators}, volume={2}, ISSN={["2640-4567"]}, DOI={10.1002/aisy.202000069}, abstractNote={The inherent compliance of soft robots often makes it difficult for them to exert forces on surrounding surfaces or withstand mechanical loading. Controlled stiffness is a solution to empower soft robots with the ability to apply large forces on their environments and sustain external loads without deformations. Herein, a compact, soft actuator composed of a shared electrode used for both electrostatic actuation and variable stiffness is described. The device operates as a dielectric elastomer actuator, while variable stiffness is provided by a shared electrode made of gallium. The fabricated actuator, namely variable stiffness dielectric elastomer actuator (VSDEA), has a compact and lightweight structure with a thickness of 930 μm and a mass of 0.7 g. It exhibits a stiffness change of 183×, a bending angle of 31°, and a blocked force of 0.65 mN. Thanks to the lightweight feature, the stiffness change per mass of the actuator (261× g−1) is 2.6 times higher than that of the other type of VSDEA that has no shared electrode.}, number={10}, journal={ADVANCED INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS}, author={Piskarev, Egor and Shintake, Jun and Ramachandran, Vivek and Baugh, Neil and Dickey, Michael D. and Floreano, Dario}, year={2020}, month={Oct} }
 @inproceedings{parks_dutta_ramachandram_hatua_bhattacharya_2012, title={Black start control of a solid state transformer for emergency power restoration}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84870862926&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1109/ecce.2012.6342824}, abstractNote={This paper demonstrates the black start capabilities of a single phase 20kVA solid state transformer (SST), specifically for microgrid power restoration during islanding. SST's have many benefits including better management of renewable energy resources and more intelligent control than the classical transformer which acts only as a passive device. An additional benefit of the SST that is demonstrated in this paper is the ability to use these renewable energy resources directly connected to the SST to restore microgrid load power during an islanding event. During the black start procedure the SST can switch the control operation of its three cascaded power converter stages, AC/DC rectifier, Dual Active Bridge, and DC/AC inverter, in order to restore the microgrid load. The benefits of using the SST for black start restoration are also discussed and compared with other traditional methods.}, booktitle={2012 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, ECCE 2012}, author={Parks, N. and Dutta, S. and Ramachandram, V. and Hatua, K. and Bhattacharya, Subhashish}, year={2012}, pages={188–195} }