An engineering approach to reduced power consumption of IPMC (ion-polymer metal composite) actuators

Ion-polymer metal composites (IPMC) are electroactive polymer (EAP) materials that behave in electric field similar to biological muscles. Among the shortcomings of an emerging technology like IPMC muscles their energy consumption is one of the most serious. This paper represents a novel open-loop control method for IPMC artificial muscles that significantly reduces their power consumption. We discuss some underlying principles of the ion-conducting polymers and show that our method is consistent with theoretical findings. This method is then experimentally tested and verified to the existing methods. The results confirm that energy consumptions of the muscles can be reduced 3.7 times and peak current consumption up to 2.6 times