Ion-exchange polymer artificial muscle and actuating system

Chemomechanical transformations are used to produce a mechanical force from a reversible chemical reaction in order to generate artificial muscular contraction, on the model of the biological muscle. The design and experimentation of an original artificial muscle using an ion-exchange polymer which reacts inside a soft envelope, derived from research on pneumatic artificial McKibben muscle, is presented. Then a chemomechanical actuator constituted of two artificial muscles has been conceived: first results are shown on position control in open-loop mode.