Fuzzy Adaptive Dynamic Programming Minimum Energy Control Of Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Abstract

In this paper, a new optimal control scheme is presented to minimize the energy required by a positioning system based on a dielectric elastomer membrane actuator. In order to address the strongly nonlinear model of the device, an approximated approach is required. In here, an Adaptive Dynamic Programming based algorithm is proposed, capable of minimizing a family of cost functions related to the energy consumption with respect to a single reference value. Furthermore, in order to handle the optimization of arbitrary reference trajectories without solving an infinite number of optimal control problems, a fuzzy logic approach is proposed. Simulation results are finally presented to show the advantages of the proposed method, compared with alternative solutions.