Towards development of a bio-inspired artificial muscle using IPMC for potential applications in robotics

Biological muscle is an efficient actuator that has unique characteristics; such as flexibility, high specific power and lightweight. There is a real need to develop an artificial muscle which mimics the characteristics and functionality of the biological muscle. In this paper a new bio-inspired multi-segment muscle actuator model is presented using ionic polymeric metallic composites (IPMC). The contraction stage model of the actuator is derived and the force-length relation of the actuator shows that the actuator can produce a maximum total force of 0.12 N, and it can contract a total axial displacement of 12 mm/step.