Exist Research Transfer: DE Solution
from left to right: Dennis Meier, Stephan Lenz, Stefan Seelecke, Philipp Linnebach, Steffen Hau
The project "DE Solution" at the Intelligent Material Systems Lab at Saarland University has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy and the European Social Fund since August 2019 as part of the EXIST Research Transfers program. Over a period of two years, this project will be supported with 1.1 million euros. The team includes Philipp Linnebach, Dr.-Ing. Steffen Hau, Dennis Meier and Stephan Lenz with their mentor and chair holder Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stefan Seelecke. The team is scientifically supported by Prof. Dr. Guido Kickelbick. In addition, the team is closely accompanied by an expert from industry in the field of high-voltage electronics (www.hivolt.de, www.wme.de), Mr. Wulf Müller, as well as the commercial director of the Center for Mechatronics and Automation Technology in Saarbrücken (www.zema.de), Mr. Andreas Noss. On the material side, the team cooperates with Wacker Chemie AG (www.wacker.de).
The project aims to develop innovative and marketable drive and sensor solutions based on dielectric elastomers (DE). These consist of a thin silicone film with electrodes applied on both sides. Through clever system arrangement and intelligent electronics, the DEs become light, noiseless and energy-efficient actuators with inherent sensor properties. Without additional expensive sensor technology, intelligent drives can thus be realized which, for example, measure their own position at any time and can thus regulate and monitor themselves. The marketing of these innovative sensor and actuator solutions is carried out by the company Desaar GmbH, which was founded during the project phase. Further information about the company, its products, possible applications and DE technology is available at www.desaar-systems.com.