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Intelligent Materials and Systems Laboratory

IMS Lab

Intelligent Materials and Systems Laboratory is an interdisciplinary research group established in 2003 in University of Tartu, Institute of Technology.

Our goal is, by bringing together knowledge from diverse fields of expertise, to develop new materials and their control and applications. Exploitation of innovative materials will in turn permit building devices, different and in many ways superior to conventional machines.

The scientific background of our staff as well as the laboratory equipment permits research activities on the borderline of computational material science, material science, robotics, chemistry, computer science and electronics.

Currently our main research activity is focusing on development and exploitation of ion-conducting polymers and their composites. Ion-conducting polymer composites are a type of electroactive polymers that change their shape and size when electrically stimulated. The behavior of these materials resembles to some extent the behavior of biological muscles and therefore electroactive polymer actuators are often referred to as artificial muscles.

Research areas

File:1.8V-7.png The basic chemical research focuses on the synthesis characteristics, properties, and long-term stability of conducting polymers, mainly polypyrrole. The laboratory work deals with chemical and electrochemical synthesis, electrochemical and electro-chemo-mechanical characterization of polypyrrole. Applied research focuses on the fabrication of actuators based on conducting polymers. Our novel approach is to combine chemical and electrochemical synthesis for fabricating soft, metal-free, air-operated actuators with large strains.	File:Muskel.jpg Ionic electroactive polymers (EAP) bend when stimulated with low voltage (only a few volts). At first glance, all ionic EAPs seem similar in construction – two conducting electrodes separated by a polymer membrane, containing freely moving ions – although their actuation mechanisms can be significantly different. We research different EAP materials from FEM simulation to fabrication and from measurement methodics to applications.
File:Punnjaratas.png EAP in space Generally the lifetime of ionic EAP-s is reported several millions of working cycles. Is it really that much? The purpose of this authentic equipment is automatic long-term testing of hundreds of ionic EAP actuators. One of the goals of this project is to verify if the EAP materials survive the low earth orbit conditions: exposing to the gamma, x-ray or ultraviolet radiation, or freezing to very low temperatures.	File:Labor.png Another of our projects is concentrated on improving the finishing technology for shoe laces. In co-operation with Haine lace factory, our aim is to improve the present finishing methods: a) waxing of cotton laces to improve the lustre of laces to match polished leather shoes; b) water-repellency treatment of polyester laces for hiking-, military- and other specialty boots but also for other strings and laces. As the present treatments used do not guarantee consistent quality, improved chemicals and finishing techniques have to be developed.
File:Sem.png Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is a practical tool for studying the surfaces of materials in high resolution and large depth-of-field using an electron beam rather than light. The detection of backscattered electrons allows to obtain information about the chemical composition (contrast based on atomic numbers) as well as topography data. Our instrument (Hitachi TM-300) will soon be upgraded to include an Energy Dispersive X-ray microanalysis module, allowing us to study the exact elemental composition of samples	File:Mannekeenid.jpg Fits.me is a virtual fitting room for online clothing retailers that utilizes robot mannequines developed in our robotics laboratory. It has brought together competences from diverse fields ranging from apparel design and anthropometrics to IT, robotics and engineering. Both male and female models are available and being constantly improved. The Fits.me technology allows the robot to adjust and conform to hundreds of thousands of body shapes, allowing the shopper to visualize how the specific garment will look on her. This solves the single biggest problem for online fashion retail – the lack of a fitting room.
File:Liigutuseng.png Carbon-polymer composite (CPC) actuator-sensor materials are a type of EAP which have electromechanical properties similar to ionic polymer-metal composites (IPMC), but the composition is different. We study how electromechanical properties change when carbon material or ionic liquid is changed.

Many of these research objectives imply bridging wide gaps between basic and applied sciences or between research and practical applications. We therefore aim at developing several proof-of-concept applications, for example such as a robot with artificial muscles, to demonstrate the potential of these new enabling technologies and to identify the main research problems that have to be tacked.

Besides our research activates the staff of our laboratory is also involved in education. We teach courses on computational physics, innovation and problem solving, biologically inspired robotics and coordinate the Robotics Club of University of Tartu. We also supervise course projects and master thesis related to our fields of competence. Many undergraduate students are actively participating in our research activities.