Recently, dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) have been popularly employed for several soft robotic applications. However, achieving effective control of their highly nonlinear deformation is a key issue. Besides material nonlinearity and electromechanical coupling which accounts for their strong nonlinear behavior, response of DEAs is also affected by their viscoelasticity and inhomogeneous deformation. In this paper, we present an analytical model that can account for all these factors in a circular DEA. Both the viscoelastic behavior and the effect due to inhomogeneous deformation of passive area are well exhibited. Algorithm to obtain the numerical solution is proposed and the simulation results show good agreement with the experimental data. In addition, a feedforward controller is designed by inverse solution of the proposed analytical model which is subsequently used to test the tracking ability of the developed controller. Given a desired displacement, control voltage is first calculated by the developed controller and applied to DEA. The measured displacement of the actuator follows well with the desired trajectory, which verifies the effectiveness of the developed controller. We hope that the effective control of DEAs may pave their way to expansive future applications of soft robots.

近来，介电弹性体致动器（DEA）已广泛用于几种软机器人应用中。但是，实现对其高度非线性变形的有效控制是关键问题。除了材料非线性和机电耦合（它们具有很强的非线性行为）外，DEA的响应还受到其粘弹性和不均匀变形的影响。在本文中，我们提出了一个分析模型，该模型可以解释循环DEA中的所有这些因素。粘弹性行为和被动区域不均匀变形所产生的影响都得到了很好的展示。提出了求解数值解的算法，仿真结果与实验数据吻合良好。此外，通过所提出的分析模型的逆解来设计前馈控制器，随后将其用于测试所开发控制器的跟踪能力。给定所需的位移，首先由开发的控制器计算控制电压，然后将其施加到DEA。测得的执行器位移很好地遵循了期望的轨迹，从而验证了开发的控制器的有效性。我们希望DEA的有效控制可以为软机器人的广阔应用铺平道路。验证开发的控制器的有效性。我们希望DEA的有效控制可以为软机器人的广阔应用铺平道路。验证开发的控制器的有效性。我们希望DEA的有效控制可以为软机器人的广阔应用铺平道路。