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Like many other smart materials, ionic polymer metal composites (IPMCs) demonstrate strong environment dependence. In particular, temperature and humidity have significant impacts on the IPMC behaviors through their influence on the electrical/mechanical properties of the material and ion/solvent transport inside the polymer. Without properly accounting for their influence, it will be difficult to obtain a precise model for interpreting the results from an IPMC sensor output or controlling an IPMC actuator. In this chapter, we first present systematic studies on temperature-dependent IPMC sensing dynamics, which is modeled with a transfer function with temperature-dependent coefficients. By fitting the values of the coefficients with the empirical frequency response of the sensor at a set of test temperatures, we capture the temperature dependence of the coefficients with polynomial functions, which can be used to predict the sensing dynamics at other temperatures. A similar approach is further applied to the modeling and open-loop control of temperature-dependent IPMC actuators. In addition, we characterize and model the influence of environmental humidity on an IPMC sensor operating in air from a physical perspective. A physics-based model is used with humidity-dependent physical parameters.

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