Evaluation and improvement of response of dielectric elastomer actuator

Abstract

In this research, we have developed a method to fabricate a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) that can withstand high-voltage driving. The DEA can achieve high-speed driving with the high-voltage input. We changed density distribution of carbon nanotubes (CNT) that are flexible electrodes by changing the timing of application of the CNT. Generally, the CNT electrode is applied after completely pre-streching the elastomer. We propose a method to apply the CNT before completely pre-streching the elastomer to reduce CNT density We conducted an experiment with several models, and we found improvement of performance in some models. The instantaneous performance of the proposed DEA is superior to that of the conventional DEA, and it is expected that a higher output artificial muscle will be developed depending on further improvement.