Modeling and Validation of a High Voltage Driving Circuit for Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

This paper presents a control-oriented model for a novel concept of high-voltage driving circuit. The circuit topology is specifically devised for actuator applications involving dielectric elastomers (DEs). The effective activation of a DE actuator (DEA) requires driving voltages on the order of several kV, which are difficult to generate with standard hardware. The developed circuit concept, which is based on the combination between a resonant converter and a Greinacher circuit, allows us to achieve high-voltage DEA activation with an overall compact and cost-effective design. In order to accurately control the high voltage supplied to the DEA, a dynamic model of the circuit must be developed first. It is remarked how the presence of several nonlinear components makes the analysis of such circuit a highly challenging task. In here, we propose a model which relates the circuit input voltage (3 - 5 V) to the high voltage output at the DEA side in a control-oriented fashion. The key idea is based on reformulating in an average setting the switching dynamics of the electric network. The effectiveness of the derived dynamic model is demonstrated by means of comparative simulations conducted with LTSpice IV, as well as via experiment results.