Soft actuator using ionic polymer-metal composite driven with ionic liquid

2019 ◽

Vol 141 (7) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Zheng Chen ◽

Piqi Hou ◽

Zhihang Ye

Keyword(s):

Steady State ◽

Dynamic Model ◽

Robotic Fish ◽

Metal Composite ◽

Ionic Polymer Metal Composite ◽

Servo Motor ◽

Ionic Polymer ◽

Soft Actuator ◽

Polymer Metal ◽

Motion Dynamics

In this paper, a new robotic fish propelled by a hybrid tail, which is actuated by two active joints, is developed. The first joint is driven by a servo motor, which generates flapping motions for main propulsion. The second joint is actuated by a soft actuator, an ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) artificial muscle, which directs the propelled fluid for steering. A state-space dynamic model is developed to capture the two-dimensional (2D) motion dynamics of the robotic fish. The model fully captures the actuation dynamics of the IPMC soft actuator, two-link tail motion dynamics, and body motion dynamics. Experimental results have shown that the robotic fish is capable of swimming forward (up to 0.45 body length/s) and turning left and right (up to 40 deg/s) with a small turning radius (less than half a body length). Finally, the dynamic model has been validated with experimental data, in terms of steady-state forward speed and turning speed at steady-state versus flapping frequency.

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Multi-scale distributed parameter modeling of ionic polymer-metal composite soft actuator

Control Engineering Practice ◽

10.1016/j.conengprac.2010.10.005 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 19 (4) ◽

pp. 321-334 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Gou Nishida ◽

Kentaro Takagi ◽

Bernhard Maschke ◽

Takaaki Osada

Keyword(s):

Distributed Parameter ◽

Metal Composite ◽

Ionic Polymer Metal Composite ◽

Ionic Polymer ◽

Soft Actuator ◽

Multi Scale ◽

Polymer Metal ◽

Distributed Parameter Modeling

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The Effect of Ionic Liquid Uptake and Self-assembled Conductive Network Composite Layers on NafionTM based Ionic Polymer Metal Composite Electromechanical Bending Actuators

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/opl.2013.807 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 1575 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dong Wang ◽

Reza Montazami ◽

James R. Heflin

Keyword(s):

Ionic Liquid ◽

Porous Electrode ◽

Metal Composite ◽

Ionic Polymer Metal Composite ◽

Conductive Network ◽

Bending Performance ◽

Ionic Polymer ◽

Polymer Metal ◽

Self Assembled ◽

Conductive Network Composite

ABSTRACTIonic liquid (IL) is used as the working electrolyte in ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) electromechanical bending actuators because of its high stability and conductivity, which are crucial for the consistency and speed of the actuation. Because the bending actuation is caused by the migration and accumulation of the cations and anions of the IL, it is clear that both the overall number of ions and the effectiveness of ion transport and accumulation play important roles in the actuation behavior. In this paper, the effect of enhancing the ion accumulation by the self-assembled conductive network composite (CNC) layers is investigated by comparing the bending behavior of actuators with and without CNC layers. In addition, IPMC actuators with various IL uptakes are also tested in order to study the dependence of the bending performance on the amount of the ions available. It is found that, with the CNC layers, the maximum bending curvature of the actuator increases with increased IL, which shows the crucial role played by the IL. However, under the same conditions, the performance improvement of actuators without CNC layers saturates when the IL uptake reaches around 10% wt. This demonstrates the role of the CNC layers to provide a porous electrode with increased capacitance that thus accommodates accumulation of more ions near the electrodes, which in turn boosts the overall bending curvature of the actuator.

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