Doping effects on robotic systems with ionic polymer–metal composite actuators

Abstract

Ionic polymer–metal composite (IPMC) materials are one of the most promising electro-active polymer actuators for applications, and have good properties of response and durability. The characteristics of IPMC materials depend on the type of counter-ion. When applied to mechanical systems such as a robot, there exist possibilities to change the properties of the system dynamics by changing the counter-ions and system parameters according to the environment or purpose. We focus on this 'doping effect' property of the system and will verify the effect on robotic applications. In this paper, we consider dynamic walking of a small-sized biped robot and swimming motion of a snake-like robot, and demonstrate the doping effects by numerical simulations and experiments.