Electric Charge Transfer Between Cascading Dielectric Electroactive Polymer Actuators

With the never slowing interest in dielectric electroactive polymer (DEAP) actuators for medical applications, the need to optimize the management of the driving energy of these actuators becomes evermore important. In order to tackle the problematic of the loss of charges from the DEAPs into the resistive elements of the circuits when the power source is switched off, this paper explores various possible topologies allowing electrical charge transfer between multiple DEAPs. First, basic simulations confirm that one could theoretically transfer a large portion of the charges from a first actuator with resonating topologies. Second, more refined simulations were conducted to determine the critical parameters that influence the amount of energy possible to transfer. Finally, the importance of having a well synchronized switching strategy to maximize the energy transferred and minimize the energy lost is discussed.