US Patent Issued to ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE (EPFL) on Jan. 27 for "Dielectric elastomer actuator" (French, Swiss Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,538,709, issued on Jan. 27, was assigned to ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE (EPFL) (Lausanne, Switzerland).

"Dielectric elastomer actuator" was invented by Yves Perriard (Neuchatel, Switzerland), Jonathan Chavanne (Chatel-St-Denis, Switzerland), Yoan Civet (Publier, France) and Morgan Almanza (Massy, France).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A dielectric elastomer actuator comprising: a plurality of polymer layer; a plurality of stretchable electrode layers, each polymer layer being sandwiched between two electrode layers so as to control the electric field within the polymer layer; at least one stretchable charge distribution layer...