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Soft actuators have been developed for a variety of applications, including soft grippers, artificial muscles, wearables, tactile devices, and medical devices. In this review, we will discuss a group of chemical materials and their robotic applications in soft actuators controlled with electrical stimuli. Soft actuators provide a deformable body and allow interaction with the environment to achieve the desired actuation pattern. We will also discuss the principles of operation and functionality and focus on important real-life applications of three groups of soft actuators: ionic polymer–metal composites (IPMCs), dielectric electroactive polymers (DEAPs), and magnetorheological elastomers (MREs). This review article aims to provide researchers interested in the field of soft robotics with a guide to various state-of-the-art chemistry methods used in electrically activated soft actuators, as well as the application areas for such devices.

Abstract:A new structure to design observers for linear systems is presented in this work. The key step is the construction of two layers where the first consists of multiple observers and the second connects them providing the weighted estimation state. The main difficulty is to find a new feedback which is responsible for control weights. To define observation law, we rely on multi observers from the first layer. The proposed structure significantly improves the transient characteristics of the observation process, which is shown in illustrative examples.

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Dielectric electroactive actuators are novel and significant smart actuators. The crucial aspect of construction of these devices is the bias mechanism. The current literature presents three main types of biases used in the construction of the DEAP actuators. In these solutions, the bias is caused by the action of a spring, a force of a permanent magnet or an applied mass. The purpose of this article is to present a novel type of DEAP bias mechanism using soft pneumatic spring. In contrast to the solutions presented so far, the soft pneumatic spring has been equipped with a sensor that measures the variable pressure of its inner chamber. We performed the modeling process of a soft pneumatic spring with the finite element method to predict its mechanical behavior. Furthermore, a prototype of the soft spring was molded and used to construct a dielectric electroactive polymer actuator. The principle of operation has been confirmed by the experiments with measurement of static and dynamics characteristics. The presented device can be used to control systems with an additional pressure-sensing feedback.