Adaptive Fuzzy Sliding Mode Control Based on a DEAP Flexible Actuator

The dielectric electro-active polymer (DEAP) is a new type of the flexible smart material, which performance is similar to natural muscle. The DEAP has characteristics of light weight, high energy density and big deformation and so on, so it has a wide range of applications for the actuator field of bionic robots. However, the DEAP material generally has strong hysteresis as well as the nonlinearity and uncertainty. In view of this limitation, an adaptive fuzzy sliding mode control algorithm based on a DEAP flexible actuator is proposed. Firstly, an inverse compensation operator of a Prandtl-Ishlinskii model is applied to mitigate the hysteresis effect. Then, a robust adaptive fuzzy sliding mode controller is designed by a combination of sliding mode control and a fuzzy logic system. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the control strategy has not only high tracking accuracy and fast response speed in the case of parameter variations and external disturbances, but also a good robustness and dynamic performance.