Recent advances in ionic polymer-metal composite actuators and their modeling and applications

This paper presents a comprehensive review of ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) actuators. Recently, strong emphasis has been put on investigating various ionic polymer membranes for high-performance IPMC actuators and overcoming some drawbacks of ionic polymer actuators to improve stability and reliability. The paper gives an overview of different types of sulfonated ionic polymer membranes. Various emerging materials that exhibit notably good deformation, stability, and efficiency are extensively considered. A thorough comparison of different state-of-the-art ion exchange membranes is presented. Along with the material study, recent trends in modeling and control approached of IPMC actuators are presented. Although fundamental models of IPMC were proposed over a decade ago, physics-based models are still being developed in order to study specific aspects of the actuators and to develop a control design for practical applications. Therefore, this paper considers the latest actuation models and control designs of IPMC actuator and various promising prototype applications that lead the way in using the materials for real applications in future.