Abstract
The purpose of this study is to design and control a thick shape memory alloys (SMA) actuator to achieve fast position control with two connected SMA wires. In the past, research had focused on position and force control of thin SMA wires, because they can be cooled fast in air and as it is easy to get fast response speeds for SMA actuators in this manner. However, the cooling time increases for thick SMA wires, making it difficult to obtain fast position responses with traditional displacement feedback control method. Phase resistance and displacement feedback control (PRDFC), combing both the phase resistance and displacement as feedback, minimizes cooling time by shortening the long latency time of thick SMA wires, and experimental results here show that fast response speed is achieved using this new method in comparison with the case in which only displacement is used as feedback.
