Modelling and simulation of a commercially available dielectric elastomer actuator

To fully harness the potential of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) in soft robots, advanced control methods are needed. An important groundwork for this is the development of a control-oriented model that can adequately describe the underlying dynamics of a DEA. Existing models commonly focus on custom-made DEAs, simplifying the modelling process due to well-known specifications and actuator structures. However, for commercial actuators, only information from the manufacturer is available, necessitating verification or completion during the modelling process. The aim of this paper is to explore how a commercial stacked silicone-based DEA can be modelled and how complex the model should be to properly replicate the features of the actuator. The static description has demonstrated the suitability of Hooke’s law. In the case of dynamic description, it is shown that no viscoelastic model is needed for control-oriented modelling. However, if all features of the DEA are considered, the generalised Kelvin–Maxwell model with three Maxwell elements shows good results, stability and computational efficiency.