Sensory behavior of ionic polymer metal composite

The sensor/transducer of interest here is the Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite (IPMC). In this paper, we attempt to model the IPMC as a parallel connected RC circuit ascertaining that the charges generated out of IPMC are proportional to the velocity on each capacitor. A damped electric response is observed which is highly repeatable. This also makes IPMCs effective for large motion sensors. Experiments were conducted using IPMC samples with various lengths, width of 10 mm and various thicknesses. The cations used for these experiments were Na+, Li+, and K+. IPMCs have been shown to be an attractive solution for unique problems requiring a transducer for sensing in applications such as large motion sensing or damping.