A Study on Mechanism of Traveling Wave Generation by Using ICPF Actuator

In order to obtain basic knowledge to develop high performance ICPF actuators，which is a high polymer gel actuator composed of PFS membrane plated with platinum，the mechanism of generation of traveling wave of the ICPF actuator and its theoretical principal have been investigated in the study。Throughout the 3-year research，the following results have been obtained。·A platinum plating method has been developed which produced arbitrary plating perttan on PFS membrane by using masking.This result enables to design ICPF acutuator of arbitrary shape.·Analysis of the motion of a plane-type ICPF actuator in experiments was carried out。A gray/white box model has been proposed based on the analysis.By using the model，finite element method can be used to predict of the motion。·An arch-shape actuator which is composed of two ICPF actuators and a mesh-type actuator which is composed of many ICPF actuators have been developed.It has been confirmed experimentally that both actuators can generate traveling wave.·For the arch-shape actuator，some parameters，such as the width and the length，have been examined experimentally and optimal parameters have been determined.·On the basis of the previous results，a motor and a distributed driving system have been fabricated by using the arch-shape actuators。Their effectiveness have been confirmed experimentally.In addition，it has been confirmed that the mesh-type actuator can generate arbitraty traveling waves，though with small displacement，through the expreiments.

In order to obtain basic knowledge to develop high performance ICPF actuators, which is a high polymer gel actuator composed of PFS membrane plated with platinum, the mechanism of generation of traveling wave of the ICPF actuator and its theoretical principal have been investigated in the study. Throughout the 3-year research, the following results have been obtained.・A platinum plating method has been developed which produced arbitrary plating perttan on PFS membrane by using masking. This result enables to design ICPF acutuator of arbitrary shape.・Analysis of the motion of a plane-type ICPF actuator in experiments was carried out. A gray/white box model has been proposed based on the analysis. By using the model, finite element method can be used to predict of the motion.・An arch-shape actuator which is composed of two ICPF actuators and a mesh-type actuator which is composed of many ICPF actuators have been developed. It has been confirmed experimentally that both actuators can generate traveling wave.・For the arch-shape actuator, some parameters, such as the width and the length, have been examined experimentally and optimal parameters have been determined.・On the basis of the previous results, a motor and a distributed driving system have been fabricated by using the arch-shape actuators. Their effectiveness have been confirmed experimentally. In addition, it has been confirmed that the mesh-type actuator can generate arbitraty traveling waves, though with small displacement, through the expreiments.