Unlike rigid actuators, soft actuators can easily adapt to complex environments. Understanding the relationship between the deformation of soft actuators and external factors such as pressure would enable rapid designs based on specific requirements, such as flexible, compliant endoscopes. An effective model is demonstrated that predicts the deformation of a soft actuator based on the virtual work principle and the geometrically exact Cosserat rod theory. The deformation process is analyzed for extension, bending, and twisting modules. A new manufacturing method is then introduced. Through any combination of modules, the soft actuator can have a greater workspace and more dexterity. The proposed model was verified for various fiber-reinforced elastomeric enclosures. There is good agreement between the model analysis and the experimental data, which indicates the effectiveness of the model.

This letter reports a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester which energy conversion efficiency is significantly improved by arraying piezoelectric sheets on cantilever beams, and the operation frequency band is widened by applying two‐segment cantilever beams. A prototype is developed and tested. In this case, two group piezoelectric arrays are combined on the cantilever beams with the optimum load resistance. The total output power remains above 6.54 mW within the operation frequency band ranges from 27.5 Hz to 37.5 Hz when the generator is under an acceleration of 0.7 g and reaches two power peaks: 20.5 mW at 29.2 Hz and 12.95 mW at 35.4 Hz.

Existing piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting circuits require auxiliary power for the switch control module and are difficult to adapt to broadband piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters. This paper proposes a self-powered and low-power enhanced double synchronized switch harvesting (EDSSH) circuit. The proposed circuit consists of a low-power follow-up switch control circuit, reverse feedback blocking-up circuit, synchronous electric charge extraction circuit and buck-boost circuit. The EDSSH circuit can automatically adapt to the sinusoidal voltage signal with the frequency of 1 to 312.5 Hz that is output by the piezoelectric vibration energy harvester. The switch control circuit of the EDSSH circuit works intermittently for a very short time near the power extreme point and consumes a low amount of electric energy. The reverse feedback blocking-up circuit of the EDSSH circuit can keep the transmission efficiency at the optimal value. By using a charging capacitor of 1 mF, the charging efficiency of the proposed EDSSH circuit is 1.51 times that of the DSSH circuit.

This paper introduces magnetic integrated high-order trap–trap–inductor (TTL) and inductor–trap–trap (LTT) filters featuring two LC-traps designed for grid-tied inverters, aimed at reducing the size of output-power multi-trap filters. The proposed filters exhibit excellent harmonic absorption capabilities alongside a compact design. Building on the conventional integrated inductor–capacitor–inductor (LCL) filter, the approach involves connecting a small capacitor in parallel with either the inverter-side or grid-side inductors to create an LC trap. Additionally, a second LC trap can be achieved by integrating the filter capacitor in series with the equivalent trap inductance, established by the magnetic coupling between the grid-side inductor and inverter-side one. This paper thoroughly analyzes the characteristics of the proposed filters. Moreover, a design method is presented to further minimize the size of the output filter components. Finally, validation through simulations and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) experiments confirms the proposed approach’s effectiveness and feasibility. The integrated designs achieve a size reduction of 35.4% in comparison with the discrete windings. Moreover, these designed filters comply with IEEE standards, maintaining a grid-side current total harmonic distortion (THD) of less than 0.9%, with all current harmonics below 0.3% of the fundamental current.

On Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) aircraft, the deployment of numerous high-lift propellers with small diameters on the wing’s leading edge significantly enhances lift during low-speed flight. The increase in the number of propellers leads to a decrease in diameter, which increases the disc loading. In this paper, a rapid design method applicable to heavy-loaded propellers is developed and does not require iterative calculations compared to traditional heavy-loaded propeller design methods, enabling rapid completion of the propeller design. The results of CFD computation show that the relative thrust error of the method proposed in this paper is within 5% for disc loading ranging from 600 Pa to 1400 Pa, features a high-accuracy design of propellers with required thrust, and high thrust coefficients are achieved within large advance ratio range.

In order to study the working mechanism of piezoelectric composite cantilever beam and improve the ability of predicting the power generation performance of piezoelectric composite cantilever vibration energy harvester (CVEH), the simple and high-precision analysis models of equivalent mass and equivalent stiffness of CVEH are proposed. The natural frequency method is used to compare the calculation results of the evaluation model, Rayleigh Ritz method and finite element simulation, and the results show that the consistency (Ω) between the evaluation model and the finite element simulation is more than 95%. The influence of the mass ratio (α) between the end mass of the beam and the weight of the beam itself on Ω is analyzed by using the proposed evaluation model, which shows that Ω increases with the increase of α, and the increase is more significant in the range of 0<α<4. The analysis of the influence of α on the natural frequency of the beam ( ${\omega }_{\text{n}}$) shows that ${\omega }_{\text{n}}$ decreases with the increase of α, and the decrease is more obvious in the range of 0<α<2. According to the evaluation model, the electromechanical conversion analysis models of CVEH and its control equation with coupling of standard energy harvesting (SEH) interface circuit and Double synchronous switch harvesting (DSSH) interface circuit are established respectively, and the mathematical models of its output voltage are derived. The power generation experiment of CVEH is carried out, and the results show that the proposed models are in good agreement with the experimental results.