New actuator technologies are moving closer towards the creation of artificial muscles. For these muscles to behave in synergy with natural human muscle then they must be controlled in a similar manner. It has been postulated that the control of human motion is achieved through a force and position control strategy termed impedance control. An impedance controller has been developed for implementation on an ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC actuator). The basis for this controller is a PID

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... ition controller that is demonstrated to accurately control the position response of the IPMC actuator. This position controller is extended to form an impedance controller with a force control loop and impedance filter. Inspite of identified non-linearities in the polymer force output during motion, the impedance controller has been successfully implemented demonstrating the controller design process and good performance of the control strategy.