Fabrication of MDOF IPMC Actuators to Generate Undulatory Motion

파동형 움직임이 가능한 다자유 IPMC 구동기 제작

The ionic-polymer-metal-composite actuators have the best merit for bio-mimetic locomotion because of their large bending performance. Especially, they have the advantage for mimicking a fish-like motion because IPMCs are useful to be actuated in water. So we have developed IPMC actuators with multiple electrodes for realization of biomimetic motion. Generally, the IPMC actuator has been fabricated in electroless plating technique, while it needs very long fabrication time and shows poor repeatability in the actuation performance owing to the variables in chemical fabrication process. Therefore, the novel fabrication methods were investigated by combining electroless plating and electroplating techniques capable of patterning precisely. On the whole, two different methods were compared and analyzed with similar thickness level of Platinum electrodes. Present results show that mixing chemical reduction and electroplating can be a promising candidate for electrode patterning.