Electrical behavior of a self-sensing actuator made of electroactive polymers

Conducting interpenetrating polymer networks (C-IPN) are suitable to sense and actuate with the same material, having great potential for applications in soft sensors and soft actuators at macro- or microscale. In this paper, an integrated cantilever consisting of two C-IPN demonstrates the performance of a self-sensing actuator. The sensing output of the structure is analyzed to predict its actuation. Moreover, a compensation method is proposed to balance the current leakage for quasi-static measurement.