An Electrical Model of a Dielectric Elastomer Generator

Elastomer is an electroactive polymer, which finds popular application in the field of actuators and artificial muscles. Though elastomers are popularly used as actuators, with proper modification to their operating cycle, they can also be used as generators. These dielectric elastomer generators (DEGs), due to properties such as high energy density and frequency independent operation are suitable for different energy harvesting applications. In this letter, a simplified electrical model of the DEG is proposed, which can be used in various simulation platforms to verify compatibility of DEG with electrical circuits and predict its behavior. Detailed process of deriving the model parameters from a physical DEG is discussed at length. Performance of the proposed model is verified by comparing its behavior with a prototype DEG-based energy harvesting system having a DEG of 1.3 nF capacitance. The proposed DEG model was simulated with similar conditions and the simulation results have shown good accuracy with the experimental results.