Student or educator? Sign up with your school email and get 6 months of Pro free.
CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 314

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 10 of the 10 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Evolution of 3D printed soft actuators

Open access
Zolfagharian, Ali, Kouzani, Abbas Z., Khoo, Sui Yang, Moghadam, Amir Ali Amiri, Gibson, Ian, Kaynak, Akif·2016·Sensors and Actuators A: Physical
DOI 10.1016/j.sna.2016.09.028
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Developing soft actuators and sensors by means of 3D printing has become an exciting research area. Compared to conventional methods, 3D printing enables rapid prototyping, custom design, and single-step fabrication of actuators and sensors that have complex structure and high resolution. While 3D printed sensors have been widely reviewed in the literature, 3D printed actuators, on the other hand, have not been adequately reviewed thus far. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the existing 3D printed actuators. First, the common processes used in 3D printing of actuators are reviewed. Next, the existing mechanisms used for stimulating the printed actuators are described. In addition, the materials used to print the actuators are compared. Then, the applications of the printed actuators including soft-manipulation of tissues and organs in biomedicine and fragile agricultural products, regenerative design, smart valves, microfluidic systems, electromechanical switches, smart textiles, and minimally invasive surgical instruments are explained. After that, the reviewed 3D printed actuators are discussed in terms of their advantages and disadvantages considering power density, elasticity, strain, stress, operation voltage, weight, size, response time, controllability, and biocompatibility. Finally, the future directions of 3D printed actuators are discussed.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.sna.2016.09.028

Cites

10 of 10 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 10 references

Research works printed but not linked: 97

  1. Zheng, 2015, Tough Al-alginate/poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) hydrogel with tunable LCST for soft robotics, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 7, 1758, 10.1021/am507339r · DOI · Paper page
  2. Palleau, 2013, Reversible patterning and actuation of hydrogels by electrically assisted ionoprinting, Nat. Commun., 4, 10.1038/ncomms3257 · DOI · Paper page
  3. Yu, 2015, Oxygen reduction reaction induced pH-responsive chemo-mechanical hydrogel actuators, Soft Matter, 11, 7953, 10.1039/C5SM01892G · doi:10.1039/c5sm01892g
  4. Mitsumata, 2005, Giant complex modulus reduction of κ‐carrageenan magnetic gels, Macromol. Rapid Commun., 26, 1538, 10.1002/marc.200500405 · doi:10.1002/marc.200500405
  5. Raviv, 2014, Active printed materials for complex self-evolving deformations, Sci. Rep., 4, 7422, 10.1038/srep07422 · DOI · Paper page
  6. Morales, 2014, Electro-actuated hydrogel walkers with dual responsive legs, Soft Matter, 10, 1337, 10.1039/C3SM51921J · DOI · Paper page
  7. Biggs, 2013, Electroactive polymers: developments of and perspectives for dielectric elastomers, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 52, 9409, 10.1002/anie.201301918 · DOI · Paper page
  8. Feng, 2015, Micromanipulation tool replaceable soft actuator with gripping force enhancing and output motion converting mechanisms, 18th International Conference in Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems (TRANSDUCERS), 1877
  9. Roche, 2014, A bioinspired soft actuated material, Adv. Mater., 26, 1200, 10.1002/adma.201304018 · DOI · Paper page
  10. Malone, 2006, Freeform fabrication of ionomeric polymer-metal composite actuators, Rapid Prototyping J., 12, 244, 10.1108/13552540610707004 · DOI
  11. Kerdlapee, 2014, Fabrication of electrostatic MEMS microactuator based on X-ray lithography with Pb-based X-ray mask and dry-film-transfer-to-PCB process, Microsyst. Technol., 20, 127, 10.1007/s00542-013-1816-x · doi:10.1007/s00542-013-1816-x
  12. Ota, 2016, Application of 3D printing for smart objects with embedded electronic sensors and systems, Adv. Mater. Technol., 10.1002/admt.201600013 · DOI · Paper page
  13. Muth, 2014, Embedded 3D printing of strain sensors within highly stretchable elastomers, Adv. Mater, 26, 6307, 10.1002/adma.201400334 · DOI · Paper page
  14. Rosochowski, 2000, Rapid tooling: the state of the art, J. Mater. Process. Technol., 106, 191, 10.1016/S0924-0136(00)00613-0 · doi:10.1016/s0924-0136(00)00613-0
  15. Dippenaar, 2013, 3D printed tooling for vacuum-assisted resin transfer moulding, Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol., 64, 755, 10.1007/s00170-012-4034-2 · doi:10.1007/s00170-012-4034-2
  16. Abe, 2001, The manufacturing of hard tools from metallic powders by selective laser melting, J. Mater. Process. Technol., 111, 210, 10.1016/S0924-0136(01)00522-2 · DOI · Paper page
  17. Upcraft, 2003, The rapid prototyping technologies, Assembly Autom., 23, 318, 10.1108/01445150310698634 · DOI · Paper page
  18. Pham, 1998, A comparison of rapid prototyping technologies, Int. J. Mach. Tools Manuf., 38, 1257, 10.1016/S0890-6955(97)00137-5 · DOI · Paper page
  19. Bartolo, 2003, Stereo-thermal-lithography: a new principle for rapid prototyping, Rapid Prototyping J., 9, 150, 10.1108/13552540310477454 · doi:10.1108/13552540310477454
  20. Sachs, 1992, 3-dimensional printing—rapid tooling and prototypes directly from a cad model, J. Eng. Ind.—Trans. Asme, 114, 481, 10.1115/1.2900701 · DOI · Paper page
  21. Bassoli, 2007, 3D printing technique applied to rapid casting, Rapid Prototyping J., 13, 148, 10.1108/13552540710750898 · DOI · Paper page
  22. Khaing, 2001, Direct metal laser sintering for rapid tooling: processing and characterisation of EOS parts, J. Mater. Process. Technol., 113, 269, 10.1016/S0924-0136(01)00584-2 · DOI
  23. Adams, 2015, 3D printed biocompatible enclosures for an implantable DBS microdevice, Procedia Technol., 20, 155, 10.1016/j.protcy.2015.07.026 · DOI
  24. Ambrosi, 2016, 3D-printing technologies for electrochemical applications, Chem. Soc. Rev., 10.1039/C5CS00714C · DOI · Paper page
  25. Gupta, 2016, 3D printed titanium micro-bore columns containing polymer monoliths for reversed-phase liquid chromatography, Anal. Chim. Acta, 10.1016/j.aca.2016.01.012 · DOI
  26. Jana, 2015, Bioprinting a cardiac valve, Biotechnol. Adv., 33, 1503, 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2015.07.006 · DOI · Paper page
  27. Stiltner, 2011, A method for creating actuated joints via fiber embedding in a Polyjet 3D printing process, Solid Freeform Fabrication Symp. Proc.
  28. R. MacCurdy, R. Katzschmann, Y. Kim, D. Rus, Printable hydraulics: a method for fabricating robots by 3D co-printing solids and liquids, arXiv preprint arXiv:1512.03744, (2015). · arXiv
  29. Mohd Jani, 2014, A review of shape memory alloy research, applications and opportunities, Mater. Des., 56, 1078, 10.1016/j.matdes.2013.11.084 · DOI · Paper page
  30. P. Walters, D. McGoran, Digital fabrication of smart structures and mechanisms-creative applications in art and design, In: NIP & Digital Fabrication Conference, Society for Imaging Science and Technology. (2011). · doi:10.2352/issn.2169-4451.2011.27.1.art00047_1
  31. T. Umedachi, B.A. Trimmer, Design of a 3D-printed soft robot with posture and steering control, in Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2014 IEEE International Conference on, 2014, IEEE. · DOI
  32. Meisel, 2015, A procedure for creating actuated joints via embedding shape memory alloys in PolyJet 3D printing, J. Intell. Mater. Syst. Struct., 26, 1498, 10.1177/1045389X14544144 · doi:10.1177/1045389x14544144
  33. She, 2015, Design and fabrication of a soft robotic hand with embedded actuators and sensors, J. Mech. Rob., 7, 021007, 10.1115/1.4029497 · DOI · Paper page
  34. Song, 2016, 35 Hz shape memory alloy actuator with bending-twisting mode, Sci. Rep., 6
  35. Morrow, 2016, Improving soft pneumatic actuator fingers through integration of soft sensors, position and force control, and rigid fingernails, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 10.1109/ICRA.2016.7487707 · DOI
  36. Hwang, 2015, Pneumatic microfinger with balloon fins for linear motion using 3D printed molds, Sens. Actuators A, 234, 65, 10.1016/j.sna.2015.08.008 · doi:10.1016/j.sna.2015.08.008
  37. Yu, 2015, Controlled sequential shape changing components by 3D printing of shape memory polymer multimaterials, Procedia IUTAM, 12, 193, 10.1016/j.piutam.2014.12.021 · DOI · Paper page
  38. Mao, 2015, Sequential self-folding structures by 3D printed digital shape memory polymers, Sci. Rep., 5, 13616, 10.1038/srep13616 · DOI · Paper page
  39. Yang, 2015, 3D printing of shape memory polymer for functional part fabrication, Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol.
  40. Mu, 2015, Photo-induced bending in a light-activated polymer laminated composite, Soft Matter, 11, 2673, 10.1039/C4SM02592J · DOI
  41. Ivanova, 2014, Unclonable security features for additive manufacturing, Addit. Manuf., 1–4, 24, 10.1016/j.addma.2014.07.001 · DOI
  42. Ahn, 2012, Smart soft composite: an integrated 3D soft morphing structure using bend-twist coupling of anisotropic materials, Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf., 13, 631, 10.1007/s12541-012-0081-8 · DOI
  43. Morin, 2014, Elastomeric tiles for the fabrication of inflatable structures, Adv. Funct. Mater., 24, 5541, 10.1002/adfm.201401339 · DOI
  44. Slightam, 2012, Novel integrated fluid-power actuators for functional end-use components and systems via selective laser sintering Nylon 12, 23rd Ann. Int. Solid Freeform Fabrication Symp.
  45. Peele, 2015, 3D printing antagonistic systems of artificial muscle using projection stereolithography, Bioinspiration Biomimetics, 10, 055003, 10.1088/1748-3190/10/5/055003 · DOI · Paper page
  46. Zarek, 2015, 3D printing of shape memory polymers for flexible electronic devices, Adv. Mater.
  47. Carrico, 2015, Fused filament 3D printing of ionic polymer-metal composites (IPMCs), Smart Mater. Struct., 24, 125021, 10.1088/0964-1726/24/12/125021 · DOI
  48. N. Kamamichi, T. Maeba, M. Yamakita, T. Mukai, Fabrication of bucky gel actuator/sensor devices based on printing method, In: Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2008. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on, 2008, IEEE 2008. · DOI
  49. Cai, 2016, 4D printing of soft robotic facial muscles, 2016 Ann. Int. Solid Free Form Fabrication Symp.
  50. Y. Bar-Cohen, T. McKay, P. Walters, J. Rossiter, B.O’Brien, I. Anderson, 3-dimensional fabrication of soft energy harvesters, 2013, 8687: 86870J. · doi:10.1117/12.2009919
  51. McDaid, 2012, A compliant surgical robotic instrument with integrated IPMC sensing and actuation, Int. J. Smart Nano Mater., 3, 188, 10.1080/19475411.2011.650231 · doi:10.1080/19475411.2011.650231
  52. C.T. Nguyen, H. Phung, H. Jung, U. Kim, T.D. Nguyen, J. Park, et al., Printable monolithic hexapod robot driven by soft actuator, in Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE International Conference on, 2015, IEEE 2015. · DOI
  53. O’Brien, 2008, An experimentally validated model of a dielectric elastomer bending actuator, The 15th International Symposium on: Smart Structures and Materials & Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, International Society for Optics and Photonics
  54. Carpi, 2007, Folded dielectric elastomer actuators, Smart Mater. Struct., 16, S300, 10.1088/0964-1726/16/2/S15 · DOI · Paper page
  55. Ramadan, 2014, A review of piezoelectric polymers as functional materials for electromechanical transducers, Smart Mater. Struct., 23, 033001, 10.1088/0964-1726/23/3/033001 · DOI · Paper page
  56. Cauda, 2015, Nanostructured piezoelectric polymers, J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 132, 10.1002/app.41667 · doi:10.1002/app.41667
  57. Pabst, 2013, All inkjet-printed electroactive polymer actuators for microfluidic lab-on-chip systems, SPIE Smart Structures and Materials+ Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, International Society for Optics and Photonics, 10.1117/12.2009605 · doi:10.1117/12.2009605
  58. Pabst, 2014, Inkjet printed micropump actuator based on piezoelectric polymers: device performance and morphology studies, Org. Electron., 15, 3306, 10.1016/j.orgel.2014.09.007 · doi:10.1016/j.orgel.2014.09.007
  59. Kim, 2014, 3D optical printing of piezoelectric nanoparticle–polymer composite materials, ACS Nano, 8, 9799, 10.1021/nn503268f · DOI · Paper page
  60. Maute, 2015, Level set topology optimization of printed active composites, J. Mech. Des., 137, 111402, 10.1115/1.4030994 · DOI
  61. Ge, 2012, Thermomechanical behavior of shape memory elastomeric composites, J. Mech. Phys. Solids, 60, 67, 10.1016/j.jmps.2011.09.011 · DOI
  62. Zhang, 2016, Smart three-dimensional lightweight structure triggered from a thin composite sheet via 3D printing technique, Sci. Rep., 6
  63. Le Duigou, 2016, 3D printing of wood fibre biocomposites: from mechanical to actuation functionality, Mater. Des., 96, 106, 10.1016/j.matdes.2016.02.018 · DOI · Paper page
  64. Ge, 2014, Active origami by 4D printing, Smart Mater. Struct., 23, 094007, 10.1088/0964-1726/23/9/094007 · DOI · Paper page
  65. Myers, 2010, Three-dimensional photovoltaics, Appl. Phys. Lett., 96, 10.1063/1.3308490 · DOI
  66. Chalapat, 2013, Self-organized origami structures via ion-induced plastic strain, Adv. Mater., 25, 91, 10.1002/adma.201202549 · doi:10.1002/adma.201202549
  67. Tibbits, 2012, Programmable materials for architectural assembly and automation, Assembly Automation, 32, 216, 10.1108/01445151211244348 · DOI
  68. Lipton, 2016, 3D printing variable stiffness foams using viscous thread instability, Sci. Rep., 6, 29996, 10.1038/srep29996 · doi:10.1038/srep29996
  69. Hiller, 2012, Automatic design and manufacture of soft robots, Rob. IEEE Trans., 28, 457, 10.1109/TRO.2011.2172702 · DOI · Paper page
  70. Highley, 2015, Direct 3D printing of shear-thinning hydrogels into self-healing hydrogels, Adv. Mater., 27, 5075, 10.1002/adma.201501234 · DOI · Paper page
  71. Guo, 2013, Solvent-cast three-dimensional printing of multifunctional microsystems, Small, 9, 4118, 10.1002/smll.201300975 · DOI · Paper page
  72. Wang, 2015, Self-healing composites: a review, Cogent Eng., 2, 1075686, 10.1080/23311916.2015.1075686 · DOI · Paper page
  73. Ross, 2013, A model to measure surgical outflow using a two-tubed experimental glaucoma drainage device, Invest. Ophthalmol., 54
  74. An, 2016, A perspective on 4D bioprinting, Int. J. Bioprint., 2, 10.18063/IJB.2016.01.003 · DOI
  75. Wang, 2015, Smart hydrogels for 3D bioprinting, Int. J. Bioprint., 10.18063/IJB.2015.01.005 · DOI · Paper page
  76. Khoo, 2015, 3D printing of smart materials: a review on recent progresses in 4D printing, Virtual Phys. Prototyping, 10, 103, 10.1080/17452759.2015.1097054 · DOI · Paper page
  77. Abeyewickreme, 2009, Bio-electrospraying embryonic stem cells: interrogating cellular viability and pluripotency, Integr. Biol., 1, 260, 10.1039/b819889f · DOI
  78. Soman, 2013, Digital microfabrication of user-defined 3D microstructures in cell-laden hydrogels, Biotechnol. Bioeng., 110, 3038, 10.1002/bit.24957 · DOI · Paper page
  79. Guillemot, 2011, Laser-assisted bioprinting to deal with tissue complexity in regenerative medicine, MRS Bull., 36, 1015, 10.1557/mrs.2011.272 · DOI
  80. Ozbolat, 2016, Current advances and future perspectives in extrusion-based bioprinting, Biomaterials, 76, 321, 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2015.10.076 · DOI · Paper page
  81. Gao, 2015, Coaxial nozzle-assisted 3D bioprinting with built-in microchannels for nutrients delivery, Biomaterials, 61, 203, 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2015.05.031 · DOI · Paper page
  82. Gu, 2013, Polylactic acid composites incorporating casein functionalized cellulose nanowhiskers, J. Biol. Eng., 7, 10.1186/1754-1611-7-31 · DOI
  83. Kowalczyk, 2011, Mechanical and thermal properties of PLA composites with cellulose nanofibers and standard size fibers, Composites Part A, 42, 1509, 10.1016/j.compositesa.2011.07.003 · DOI · Paper page
  84. Yang, 2014, Advanced shape memory technology to reshape product design, manufacturing and recycling, Polymers, 6, 2287, 10.3390/polym6082287 · DOI
  85. Jackson, 2015, Optimization of electrical stimulation parameters for electro-responsive hydrogels for biomedical applications, J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 132, 10.1002/app.41687 · DOI
  86. Giani, 2012, Hybrid magnetic hydrogel: a potential system for controlled drug delivery by means of alternating magnetic fields, Polymers, 4, 1157, 10.3390/polym4021157 · DOI
  87. Singh, 2014, In situ gelling pH- and temperature-sensitive biodegradable block copolymer hydrogels for drug delivery, J. Controlled Release, 193, 214, 10.1016/j.jconrel.2014.04.056 · DOI · Paper page
  88. Joo, 2009, Reverse thermogelling biodegradable polymer aqueous solutions, J. Mater. Chem., 19, 5891, 10.1039/b902208b · DOI
  89. Skardal, 2010, Photocrosslinkable hyaluronan-gelatin hydrogels for two-step bioprinting, Tissue Eng. Part A, 16, 2675, 10.1089/ten.tea.2009.0798 · DOI · Paper page
  90. Gupta, 2015, 3D printed programmable release capsules, Nano Lett., 15, 5321, 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01688 · DOI · Paper page
  91. Bakarich, 2015, 4D printing with mechanically robust, thermally actuating hydrogels, Macromol Rapid Commun, 36, 1211, 10.1002/marc.201500079 · DOI · Paper page
  92. Bakarich, 2016, 3D/4D printing hydrogel composites: a pathway to functional devices, MRS Adv., 1, 521, 10.1557/adv.2015.9 · DOI
  93. Cvetkovic, 2014, Three-dimensionally printed biological machines powered by skeletal muscle, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 111, 10125, 10.1073/pnas.1401577111 · DOI · Paper page
  94. Stoychev, 2011, Self-folding all-polymer thermoresponsive microcapsules, Soft Matter, 7, 3277, 10.1039/c1sm05109a · DOI · Paper page
  95. Liu, 2016, 2D or not 2D: shape-programming polymer sheets, Prog. Polym. Sci., 52, 79, 10.1016/j.progpolymsci.2015.09.001 · DOI · Paper page
  96. Alam, 2014, MWCNTs-reinforced epoxidized linseed oil plasticized polylactic acid nanocomposite and its electroactive shape memory behaviour, Int. J. Mol. Sci., 15, 19924, 10.3390/ijms151119924 · DOI
  97. Ward Small, 2010, Biomedical applications of thermally activated shape memory polymers, J. Mater. Chem., 20, 3356, 10.1039/b923717h · DOI · Paper page

Cited by

See all 314

Metadata

Authors
Zolfagharian, A., Kouzani, A. Z., Khoo, S. Y., Moghadam, A. A. A., Gibson, I., & Kaynak, A.
Venue
Sensors and Actuators A: Physical
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2016-10
Volume
250
Pages
258-272
ISSN
0924-4247 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.sna.2016.09.028
OpenAlex
W2528496775
Cited by
314
References
10
FWCI
12.01
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

How to cite

Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.

This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Evolution of 3D printed soft actuators. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/j.sna.2016.09.028
The paper
Zolfagharian, A., Kouzani, A. Z., Khoo, S. Y., Moghadam, A. A. A., Gibson, I., & Kaynak, A. (2016). Evolution of 3D printed soft actuators. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2016.09.028

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.