Fuzzy control of conducting polymer actuators

Abstract

Actuators, as the most important part of mechanisms, influence the design process of engineering products. As society's expectation raises to manufacture novel systems which can imitate their natural prototypes, the need for alternatives to conventional actuators becomes more essential. The desired specifications for a new generation of actuators can be described as being light-weight and silent, and they need to consume as little power as possible. Conducting polymers are a newly discovered alternatives to classic actuators. They are light-weight and silent and they generate a considerable force and displacement upon application of a very low voltage. These characteristics make them worthy of study as actuators. As these actuators need to be applied in industry, controlling their output is very essential. Different control methods are applied on these kinds of actuators to control their output, but in order to achieve a robust optimum control method, more investigation is still required. In this study a Mamdani fuzzy inference system is used to control the force and displacement output of the conducting polymer actuator. Finally, results are compared with a PID controller to prove the superior performance of the fuzzy logic controller. From the results, it is evident that the fuzzy logic controller outperforms the other technique.