Integrated driving and measurement system for dielectric elastomer actuators

Dielectric elastomer behaves similarly to the muscles of animals under electric field and is known as one of artificial muscles. It shows great application potentials in the field of small biomimetic robots. Due to its high voltage driving and very soft or very large strain properties, it is difficult and dangerous to test deformation and strain of dielectric elastomer by classical attached sensor way. Non-touched and accurate measuring method is needed in this research. In this paper, we developed an image based deformation measurement system integrated with high voltage driving to automatically test the electro-mechanical behaviour of dielectric elastomer actuation under high voltage. Basic system structure, electronics, software and programs are introduced. The whole system works well in the VHB 4910 and 6100C dielectric elastomer planar actuation experiments with satisfactory precision and efficiency.