US Patent Issued to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania on Aug. 25 for "Programmable soft actuators" (Pennsylvania Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,719,390, issued on Aug. 25, was assigned to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).

"Programmable soft actuators" was invented by James Henry Pikul (Philadelphia) and Gregory Campbell (Philadelphia).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A soft actuator, comprising: a deformable member having a base stiffness; one or more electroadhesive (EA) clutches, the one or more EA clutches being in mechanical communication with the deformable member, and the one or more EA clutches being configured to, when actuated, give rise to a region of relative stiffness within the actuator that is greater than the base stiffness. A method, com...