A dynamic model for ionic polymer-metal composite sensors

• Published in: Smart materials and structures Vol. 16; no. 4; pp. 1477 - 1488
• Main Authors: ZHENG CHEN, XIAOBO TAN, WILL, Alexander, ZIEL, Christopher
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol Institute of Physics 01.08.2007
• Subjects: Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); General equipment and techniques; Instruments, apparatus, components and techniques common to several branches of physics and astronomy; Measurement and testing methods; Physics; Servo and control equipment; robots; Solid mechanics; Structural and continuum mechanics; Transducers; Resistors; Transducers; Transfer functions; Measurement sensor; Real time; Ionomers; Time response; Exact solution; Charge density; Short circuit; Ion exchange membrane; Physical model; Differential equations; Cation exchange membrane; Signal processing; Modelling; Reduced order systems; Laplace transformation; Dynamic model
• ISSN: 0964-1726; 1361-665X
• DOI: 10.1088/0964-1726/16/4/063

A dynamic, physics-based model is presented for ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) sensors. The model is an infinite-dimensional transfer function relating the short-circuit sensing current to the applied deformation. It is obtained by deriving the exact solution to the governing partial differential equation (PDE) for the sensing dynamics, where the effect of distributed surface resistance is incorporated. The PDE is solved in the Laplace domain, subject to the condition that the charge density at the boundary is proportional to the applied stress. The physical model is expressed in terms of fundamental material parameters and sensor dimensions and is thus scalable. It can be easily reduced to low-order models for real-time conditioning of sensor signals in targeted applications of IPMC sensors. Experimental results are provided to validate the proposed model.