A study of self-sensing control of hydrophilic electrolytic polymer actuator

离子聚合物-金属复合材料（IPMC）是电活性聚合物驱动器的一种。它甚至可以被普通的干电池激活。因此，IPMC是一种低能耗的弯曲模式驱动器。控制其弯曲是一项相当困难的任务。通常，IPMC弯曲控制仅通过根据情况交替地改变施加在IPMC上的电压的极性来执行。这是一种相当不切实际的弯曲控制方法。本研究尝试建立一套以控制理论为基础的IPMC弯曲成形控制技术。通过FFT分析推导出了IPMC的传递函数。利用推导出的传递函数，采用前馈、反馈和两自由度控制方法对IPMC进行了弯曲控制。结果表明，所有三种方法都能很好地控制IPMC弯曲。特别是，反馈和两个自由度的控制，使其有可能精确控制IPMC弯曲。

Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite (IPMC) is one of electroactive polymer actuators. It can be activated even by a ordinary dry cell battery. So, IPMC is a low energy consumption bending mode actuator. Control of its bending is a quite difficult task. Usually IPMC bending control is carried out merely by alternately changing polarity of voltage imposed on the IPMC according to the circumstances. It is a quite impractical way of bending control. In this study, we attempted to establish a controlling technique of IPMC bending based on the control theory. A transfer function of the IPMC was derived by FFT analysis. Employing the derived transfer function, we carried out bending control of IPMC by the methods of Feedforward, Feedback and Two-Degree-of-Freedom controls. It turned out that all three methods sufficiently well controlled the IPMC bending. Especially, Feedback and Two-Degree-of-Freedom controls made it possible to precisely control the IPMC bending.