| Summary: | Ionic Polymer Metal Composite (IPMC) is a class of electroactive polymer , that is receiving great attention due to its advantages of large bending deflection, low power consumption and driving voltage. Although there is still no commercial application of IPMC, it has been actively investigated by researchers for the past decade. The IPMC has been identified as a potential material to be used in the specific application of sensor and/or actuation, such as microgripper and micropump. This research deals with the characterisation of small scale IPMC with the ultimate objective to develop a simple microgripper to demonstrate the ability of the IPMC to grasp a micro object. A vision system has been developed to perform image processing to measure the displacement of IPMC. New algorithms of edge detection and displacement measurement have been introduced to characterise the IPMC. Comparison between laser sensor measurements and vision systems measurement has been carried out and the results showed that the vision system is a reliable measurement. Characterisation of small scale IPMC is carried out to prove the claim that miniaturization of IPMC is possible without degrading its performance. The characterisation of the IPMC actuator is divided into two major works - the displacement and blocked force measurements. The results showed that small scale characteristics are in line with the results that have been published by other researchers for larger scale of IPMC, hence supported the claim. The dynamic sensory behaviour of the IPMC has also been characterised. The results showed that the sensor functions are better in terms of producing consistent output signals when it is dehydrated. With such finding, the possibility of using the IPMC as the actuator and sensor at the same time for micro gripper application is not promising because the actuator needs to be fully hydrated in order to work better while the sensor is working better in a dehydrated condition. The final part in this research work is to develop a simple micro gripper. A two-finger microgripper with size of lOmm x 2rnrn x O.2mm is controlled by a vision feedback system to grasp small objects. For a demonstration purposes, an object with diameter of lmm was successfully grasped in 4.6 seconds.
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