Control of a Multi-electrode Dielectric Elastomer Actuator for Precise Micropositioning

Precise positioning during assembly of devices is an important step in many automated manufacturing processes. There are various concepts of micropositioners based on electromagnetic, piezoelectric and electrostatic principles. However, most of such existing technologies are undergoing thorough scientific improvement especially in terms of efforts to achieve high range and step resolution. To achieve this, an adapted actuator design in combination with an appropriate control algorithm is needed for a given application. In this study, a dielectric elastomer based micropositioner along with a setup-optimized control algorithm is introduced. The micropositioner relies on a novel design with multiple electrodes which are controlled separately. The presented work demonstrates micrometer accuracy of the lightweight miniaturized planar microactuator along with a dedicated control scheme to achieve the precision in less than one second.