An Ionic Polymer Actuator Capable of Simultaneously Improving Bandwidth and Blocking Force for Efficient Haptic Feedback

Abstract

Recently, an ionic electroactive polymer (i-EAP) actuators are spotlighted in various fields because they provide a lot of advantages such as lightweight, flexibility, simple process, and low driving power. However, they suffer from low blocking force, displacement, and wide bandwidth that can be implemented under electric field for apply to various applications. In order to apply these i-EAP actuators to various applications, it is important to provide the optimum characteristics of the i-EAP actuator adaptive to the target application. Particularly, it is required to achieve high blocking force and displacement as well as wide actuation bandwidth for haptic feedback among the various applications. In this talk, we propose an ionic polymer actuator (IPA) with wide bandwidth of over 100Hz and high blocking force based on PEDOT:PSS electrode with additives and ionic polymer with fibrillary nanostructures for effective haptic feedback. In particular, we developed an actuator that improves the interfacial properties between electrodes and an ionic polymer as well as electrical conductivity of electrodes by simple and effective way through spray-coating of PEDOT: PSS solution with additives. As a result, the IPA was successfully operated with a large displacement up to 2.5mm at an operating frequency of 20mHz under an applied voltage of 2V. Further, the IPA shows large blocking force of 0.4mN at operating frequency of 1Hz. These our actuator is capable of driving up to a high frequency of 200Hz and shows an improved blocking force up to 0.4mN. We potentially believe our IPA will provide a rational guide to future haptic feedback.