A methodology to establish a hysteresis model for trilayer conducting polymer actuators

Conducting polymer actuators which are capable of operating in air or liquid media under low actuation voltages can be used as macro and micromanipulation devices. However, their positioning accuracy is adversely affected by their hysteresis nonlinearity. In this paper, we establish a Duhem hysteresis model for conducting polymer actuators, which is a rate-independent hysteresis model. The hysteresis model is experimentally identified and integrated with the linear transfer function of the actuator to build a more accurate actuator model.