Investigation on force characteristic of IPMC artificial muscle

Abstract

Ion-exchange polymer metal composite(IPMC) is known as a material for artificial muscle actuator.The advantages of IPMC in requiring low activation voltage and the induced large bending strain led to its consideration for various potential application,especially in bio-inspired robotics. The paper studies the generative force of the IPMC actuator.The generative force at the tip of the IPMC actuators were measured with respect to the different voltages,frequents and various waveforms which include square,sinusoidal,and triangular wave.It is concluded that the generative force at the tip of the IPMC actuators increases as the input voltage gets larger and the frequency becomes lower,which can be compared with the little effect by various waveforms.