A study on an ion polymer metal composite actuator as a self-sensing system

An ion polymer metal composite (IPMC) is an Electro-Active Polymer (EAP) that bends in response to a small electrical field as a result of mobility of cations in the polymer network and vice versa. A typical IPMC sheet is constructed with a thin ionic polymer membrane and two metal electrode layers outside. This paper proposes an idea to estimate the displacement of bending curvature of an IPMC actuator base on its self-sensing characteristic. A test rig is setup for an IPMC actuator type. Here, voltage signals are measured at two determined points on one side of the IPMC sheet in order to gather the deforming information. Consequently, that data set is combined with a representative vector to estimate the IPMC bending displacement. In addition, a CCD laser displacement sensor is installed to the test rig to measure accurately the displacement which is used to obtain the representative vector and also to verify the estimated bending shape by applied the suggested self-sensing technique.