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Design and control of a novel compliant

differential shape memory alloy actuator

ARTICLE in SENSORS AND ACTUATORS A PHYSICAL · APRIL 2015

Impact Factor: 1.9 · DOI: 10.1016/j.sna.2015.01.016

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Zhao Guo Haoyong Yu

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 Sensors and Actuators A 225 (2015) 71–80

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Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sna

Design and control of a novel compliant differential shape memory

alloy actuator
Zhao Guo a , Yongping Pan a , Liang Boon Wee b , Haoyong Yu a,∗
a
Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117575
b
DSO National Laboratories, 20 Science Park Drive, Singapore 118230

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents the design and control of a novel compliant differential shape memory alloy (SMA)
Received 6 January 2014 actuator with significantly improved performance compared to traditional bias and differential type
Received in revised form 14 January 2015 SMA actuators. This actuator is composed of two antagonistic SMA wires and a mechanical joint coupled
Accepted 15 January 2015
with a torsion spring. The differential SMA wires are utilized to increase the response speed, and the
Available online 11 February 2015
torsion spring is employed to reduce the total stiffness of SMA actuator and improve the output range.
Theoretical models that include the stiffness equations of the SMA wire as well as the dynamics of three
Keywords:
different SMA actuation systems are introduced and compared. Simulation and experimental results have
Shape memory alloy
Compliant SMA actuator
proved that this new actuator can provide larger output angle compared to conventional SMA actuators
Bio-inspired design under the same conditions. Moreover, regulation and tracking control experiments have demonstrated
Saturated PI control that this compliant differential SMA actuator achieves higher response speed compared to the bias SMA
actuator using compatible PI controller. The tracking performance is further improved by the saturated
PI controller.
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) is an intelligent material that can
remember its original shape at low temperature and return to
the pre-deformed shape by heating over a threshold temperature.
Because of this unique property, it has been receiving consider-
able attention as mini-actuator in recent years [1]. Among the SMA
materials, Nitinol (Ni–Ti) alloy has been widely employed for mini-
actuator design due to its high strain (up to 8%). Compared to
conventional (electric, hydraulic, and pneumatic) actuators, SMA
actuators have the advantages of high force to mass ratio, bio-
compatibility, small size, simple mechanical design, and silence
operation. These advantages make them suitable for a wide vari-
ety of applications, like soft robotics [2,3], robotic surgical systems
[4,5], and grippers [6,7]. Nevertheless, SMA actuators present sev-
eral disadvantages, such as, low energy efficiency, slow response
rate, nonlinearity, which encourage additional effort in special
mechanical design and advanced control strategy.
SMA wire can only achieve unidirectional actuation, thus it is
necessary to provide a recovery force via a weight, a spring or
another antagonistic SMA wire to realize bidirectional movement.
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +65 6601 1590.
E-mail address: bieyhy@nus.edu.sg (H. Yu).
Typically, there are two classes of SMA actuators: bias type SMA
actuator and differential type SMA actuator [8,9]. The former one,
composed of a SMA element and a bias spring, has slow response
as the speed is determined by the cooling process and the passive
spring. The latter one, which consists of two antagonistic SMA ele-
ments, has faster speed of response than the bias actuator, but it
consumes more power and the angle is restricted by the stiff antag-
onistic SMA elements. SMA actuators with large working range,
contraction strain and quick response are desirable for different
purposes in many fields [10]. To achieve this goal, a series of new
SMA-based actuators or mechanisms have been developed. For
instance, Grant and Hayward reported a differential SMA actua-
tor which is comprised of 12 SMA wires in a helical arrangement to
produce larger strains [11]. Zhang and Yin presented a SMA-based
artificial muscle composed of 16 parallel SMA wires and a simple
linear spring to improve the driving force [12,13]. Paik and Wood
introduced a bidirectional SMA folding actuator to produce two
opposing 180◦ motions [14]. Park et al. [15] proposed a differen-
tial spring-biased SMA actuator for a bio-mimetic artificial finger.
In this design, the spring was directly connected to the SMA wire,
which may absorb the contraction length of SMA wires.
Compared to stiff actuators, compliant actuators which incor-
porate passive elastic element like spring or damper possess the
ability of absorbing shocks, storing and releasing energy, and safe
interactions with the environment [16]. These characteristics have

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2015.01.016
0924-4247/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
72 Z. Guo et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 225 (2015) 71–80
attracted strong interest from the areas of rehabilitation and sur-
gical robotics. Many types of compliant actuators, such as series
elastic actuator [17,18], variable stiffness actuator [19], and pneu-
matic artificial muscle [20] have been developed. Several advanced
materials such as ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) [21],
electro-active polymers (EAP) [22] are proposed as soft actuators
for their large deformations, but they can generate only small
forces. Unlike these soft polymers, SMA wire can generate large
forces due to its large Young’s modulus [8]. However, the use of
such SMA materials in compliant actuator design has not yet been
well investigated.
Inspired by the biological structure of human joint driven by
antagonistic muscles with tendons, this paper introduces a com-
pliant differential SMA actuator from the perspective of stiffness: a
soft spring is integrated into an antagonistic SMA actuator, intend-
ing to reduce the total stiffness and increase the compliance of the
differential SMA actuator, without compromising the advantages
of conventional SMA actuators.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes
the design of the compliant differential SMA actuator, along with
the implementation of two other different SMA actuators. Section
3 presents the mathematical models as well as a saturated PI con-
troller developed for the compliant differential SMA actuator. The
simulation and experimental results are shown in section 4. Sec-
tion 5 discusses the potential application of this actuator and the
limitation of this study, with concluding comments presented in
Section 6.
2. Actuator design
In this section, we introduce the design of the compliant dif-
ferential SMA actuator and the experimental testing bench. We
implement three configurations using the same mechanical setup
for the performance comparison of three kinds of SMA actuators.
2.1. Compliant differential SMA actuator
Human elbow joint is actuated by antagonistic skeletal mus-
cles (biceps and triceps) which are connected to the bone through
the tendon (Fig. 1(a)). Inspired by this biological structure, we pro-
pose a new SMA-based compliant differential actuator to mimic the
extension/flexion motion of human joint. As shown in Fig. 1(b), this
SMA actuator is composed of two antagonistic SMA wires, a torsion
spring and two cylindrical couplers. A load is applied on coupler #1
by threaded connection. The antagonistic SMA wires, behaving like
artificial human muscles, are directly connected to the couplers.
SMA wires provide the active force for bi-directional motion of the
actuator. The torsion spring is used to mimic the human tendon and
is packaged inside the couplers. As illustrated in Fig. 1(b), two legs
of the torsion spring (0◦ deflection, left hand wind) are restricted
by the slots in the couplers. The active contraction force produced
by the SMA wire can be transmitted from one coupler to the other
by the torsion spring. In this design, we select a soft torsion spring.
Its stiffness is lower than that of the SMA wires. The torsion spring
has two functions: one is to store the energy and provide the recov-
ery force for the SMA wire; the other is to reduce the total stiffness
of the actuator. Fig. 1(c) and (d) shows the integrated Computer
Aided Design (CAD) model and prototype of the compliant differ-
ential SMA actuator. The whole structure of this actuator is simple
and easy to implement for different applications.
An experimental testing bench designed to evaluate the perfor-
mance of this compliant differential SMA actuator is presented in
Fig. 2. The actuator is assembled into a base, supporting by two
bearings on two sides. The coupler #1 is fixed on the axis by a small
screw (not shown in this picture), while the coupler #2 can free
rotate around the axis. An encoder is connected to the axis by a
coupling. The rotational angle of the axis can be measured by the
encoder. That means the position of the load and coupler #1 can be
detected. The working process of this actuator is described as fol-
lows: when the upper SMA wire is activated by heating, the coupler
#1 rotates due to the active contraction force of SMA wire, the load
follows the rotation of coupler #1, thereby the torsion spring starts
to twist and transmits the active force from coupler #1 to coupler
#2, the lower SMA wire will be stretched to restrict the rotation, by
contrast, when the lower SMA wire is heated to contract, the active
force is transmitted in the opposite direction. Based on this prin-
ciple, we can heat the antagonist SMA wire and cool the opposite
one to increase the response speed of this actuator.
2.2. Comparison to other SMA actuators
To compare the performance of this actuator with the two
traditional SMA actuators, we implement three configurations to
represent three types of SMA actuators using the same mechanical
setup. As shown in Fig. 3, they are (a) bias SMA actuator (coupler #1
is connected with an SMA wire, coupler #2 is fixed by a hard iron
wire, recovery force comes from the torsion spring), (b) differential
SMA actuator (two SMA wires are connected to coupler #1), and
(c) compliant differential SMA actuator (two SMA wires are linked
to two couplers respectively, the torsion spring is hidden inside).
Fig. 3 includes the CAD model of each actuator and its equivalent
mechanical model. Two SMA wires generate the tensile force with
a variable stiffness ki and a damping factor bi (here and the fol-
lowing i = 1, 2). The torsion spring transmits the SMA force with a
constant stiffness ks . The system damping between two couplers is
represented by bs . mi represents the mass of each coupler and the
mass of SMA wire can be neglected (mSMA  mi ). The load applied
on coupler #1 is represented as a mass mload . Comparison of these
three SMA actuators will be discussed in the experimental section.
3. Actuator modeling and controller design
In this section, we present general theoretical models that
include the equations of the SMA wire as well as the dynamics of
the actuation system. These models are developed in several steps
for clarity. First, the nonlinear stiffness of the SMA wire is given
based on the constitutive model. And then, the dynamic equations
are developed for the controller design.
3.1. SMA modeling
3.1.1. Constitutive equation
According to Liang and Rogers [8,23], the constitutive equation
of SMA wire can be described as the relation of stress , strain ε,
temperature T and martensite fraction  (0 ≤  ≤ 1,  = 1 means SMA
totally in martensite phase,  = 0 means SMA in austenite phase).
The general form is written as
˙ = E ε̇ + ˝˙ + Ṫ (1)
where E, ˝ and  represent the Young’s modulus, phase transfor-
mation constant and thermal expansion coefficient, respectively.
For SMA material, ˝ is a constant and can be expressed as ˝ =
−εL E, where εL is the maximum recoverable strain of SMA. Since
the influence of  on the strain is much smaller than that of ˝, the
thermal expansion part in Eq. (1) can be neglected. The constitutive
equation is simplified as
˙
˙ = E ε̇ − εL E . (2)
 Z. Guo et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 225 (2015) 71–80 73

Fig. 1. (a) Structure of human elbow joint; (b) the proposed bio-inspired human joint mechanical model, two SMA wires, two couplers and a torsion spring play as the
antagonistic muscles, bones and tendon respectively; (c) the integrated design in CAD model and (d) the prototype of the compliant differential SMA actuator.

Fig. 2. (a) CAD model and (b) prototype of the experimental test bench.

The Young’s modulus is the function of martensite fraction, where A and l are the cross-sectional area and the initial length of
expressed in following expression SMA wire, respectively. k is the stiffness of SMA wire, from Eq. (5),
which is written as
E = EM + (1 − )EA (3)
A
where EM and EA are the Young’s modulus constants corresponding k= . (6)
εl
to martensite and austenite phases, respectively.
Considering two terminal conditions, where the SMA wire in
Taking into account the initial condition of SMA wire (0 , ε0 , 0 ),
twinned martensite phase without load (0 = 0, ε0 = 0,  = 1), and
the constitutive Eq. (2) is given by
full austenite without load (0 = 0, ε0 = 0,  = 0) [24], since the
 t
phase transformation rate is equal to zero, thereby from Eq. (4),
= ˙
E(ε̇ − εL )dt + 0 . (4) the SMA stiffness in full martensite phase and austenite phase are
0
given by
The contraction force of SMA wire satisfies
EM A EA A
kM = , kA = . (7)
F = A = kεl (5) l l

Fig. 3. CAD models and equivalent mechanical models for three SMA actuators: (a) bias SMA actuator; (b) differential SMA actuator; (c) compliant differential SMA actuator.
74 Z. Guo et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 225 (2015) 71–80

Table 1
Parameters of the SMA wire and the compliant actuator.

Parameter Value Parameter Value

EM 28 GPa CA 10MPa/◦ K
EA 75 GPa CM 10MPa/◦ K
As 88 ◦ C Tamb 20 ◦ C
Af 98 ◦ C A 4.9 × 10–8 m2
Ms 72 ◦ C Aw 290.45 × 10–6 m2
Mf 62 ◦ C Cp 320 J/Kg ◦ C
mw 6.8 × 10−4 kg/m εL 2.3%
R 20 /m εA 5%
l0 0.37 m h0 20
m1 , m2 8g h2 0.001
mload 100 g rl 20 mm
J1 , J2 0.38 kg (mm)2 r1 ,r2 15 mm
bs 0.5 b1 ,b2 2
ks 0.0018 N m/1◦ rs 7.5 mm

Fig. 4. (a) Simplified schematic diagram, drawing with applied forces and (b) the
3.1.2. Heat transformation model equivalent mechanical model of the compliant differential SMA actuator.
SMA has inherent hysteresis during the transformation between
martensite phase and austenite phase. The martensite fraction  is to the y axis, is defined as  i . Fi is the SMA contraction force and ri
modeled by SMA temperature and stress [8,23]. is its moment arm, respectively. s is the torque of torsion spring.
During the heating transformation (martensite phase to austen- The moment arm of the load is r1 . Ji represents the inertia constant
ite phase)  is given by of each coupler.
M   The main parameters of the compliant actuator are shown in
= cos[aA (T − As ) + bA ] + 1 Table 1. Taking into account the damping and stiffness in the actu-
2
(8) ation system, the dynamic equation of each coupler is given by
 
for As + ≤ T ≤ Af +
CA CA 
J1 ¨ 1 = F1 r1 − b1 ˙ 1 − ks (1 − 2 ) − bs (˙ 1 − ˙ 2 ) − mload grl cos 1
and during the cooling transformation (austenite phase to martens- .
ite phase)  is given by J2 ¨ 2 = ks (1 − 2 ) + bs (˙ 1 − ˙ 2 ) − F2 r2 − b2 ˙ 2
1 − A 1 + A (11)
= cos[aM (T − Mf ) + bM ] +
2 2
(9)
  For comparison, we build the dynamics of the two other SMA
for Ms + ≤ T ≤ Mf +
CM CM actuators based on the mechanical model in Fig. 3, the equation of
where Ms , Mf , As , Af are the start and finish transition temperatures the bias SMA actuator is written as
associated with martensite and austenite phase transformations. J1 ¨ 1 = F1 r1 − b1 ˙ 1 − ks 1 − bs ˙ 1 − mload grl cos 1 . (12)
aA , bA , aM and bM are constants derived from four transition tem-
peratures, aA = /(Af − As ), bA = −(aA /CA ), and aM = /(Ms − Mf ), The differential SMA actuator’s dynamic model is given by
bM = −(aM /CM ). CA , CM are material coefficients.  M , A are the ini-
J1 ¨ 1 = F1 r1 − b1 ˙ 1 − F2 r1 − b2 ˙ 1 − mload grl cos 1 . (13)
tial martensite fractions for each transformation.
Hence, the contraction force is related to the SMA stiffness and
3.1.3. Heat dynamics strain. The strain rate of SMA wire ε̇i is derived from kinematics as
The heat for phase transformation is generated by applying a a function of its joint velocity ˙ i
voltage to the SMA wire. A SMA heat transfer model is formulated to
ε̇i = ri ˙ i /li . (14)
describe the rate of temperature change due to a change in voltage
of the wire and the convective heat loss to the environment. This Based on the modeling process, a schematic diagram of the
model can be defined by the first-order dynamic equation [25]. equations involved in the overall mathematical models of the com-
V2 pliant actuation system is shown in Fig. 5. This model clearly
mw cp Ṫ = − hAw (T − Tamb ) (10) illustrates a complex multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) sys-
R
tem with cross-coupling effects. Two independent output variables
where mw is the mass per unit length, cp is the specific heat con-
stant, R is the SMA’s resistance per unit length, V is the applied
voltage, Aw is the wire surface area, Tamb is the ambient temper-
ature and h is the heat convection factor, which is a function of
the temperature with the parameters h0 and h2 , h = h0 + h2 T 2 .
Two NiTi SMA wires (0.25 mm diameter, the initial length is 0.37 m
(Twinned martensite phase), Flexinol, Dynalloy, Inc.) are selected
for our actuator design. Their properties are summarized in Table 1.

3.2. Actuator modeling

A simplified schematic diagram and its equivalent mechanical

model of the compliant differential SMA actuator are presented in
Fig. 4. The couplers are actuated under the function of the upper
and lower SMA wires. The rotational angle of each coupler, relative Fig. 5. Block diagram of the mathematical model of the actuation system.
 Z. Guo et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 225 (2015) 71–80
Fig. 6. (a) Flow diagram of the position control system for the compliant differential
SMA actuator, and (b) structure of the SPI control strategy.
 1 and  2 can be controlled by applying voltages on two SMA wires
separately. Since the load is applied on coupler #1,  =  1 represents
the output angle of the actuator.  r is the reference angular position.
3.3. Saturated PI Controller design
From the actuation system modeling derived in Section 3.2, it is
clear that the SMA actuator position can be controlled by the volt-
age signals. It is worth noting that the actuation model is important
for the simulation and controller parameters selection although it is
not directly applied to controller design. In this section, a saturated
Proportional Integral (PI) controller is designed to demonstrate the
performance of the proposed compliant differential SMA actua-
tor. The flow diagram of the position control system is presented
in Fig. 6(a). Two control voltages produced by the controller are
applied to the upper and lower SMA wires to get the desired posi-
tion.
The structure of the saturated PI controller is shown in Fig. 6(b).
A basic control law si for each SMA wire is defined as follows:
 4.2. Comparison for the three kinds of SMA actuators
si = ci + cPi
 + cIi
dt, (15)
where
 =  − r is the position error. cpi , cIi are the proportional
and integral gains, respectively. These parameters are chosen for
desired tracking performance. It has been observed that the pas-
sive SMA wire in the different SMA actuator can produce a few
millimeters of slack when it cools [10]. This will cause the wire to
contract enough to take up the slack before it begins to pull the
coupler. Slack in the wire will slow the response speed of the con-
trol system. To solve this problem, ci is set in a small voltage to
keep SMA wires in tension when the position error is zero, for the
purpose of reducing the slack of SMA wires. Each si is restricted by
a boundary layer between a high voltage ViH and zero. Thus, the
control voltage Vi for each SMA wire is defined as
⎧ ant actuator design, the stiffness of the torsion spring ks is chosen
⎪ V if si ≥ i
⎨ iH
Vi = si if 0 ≤ si < i .
⎪
⎩ (including the mean coil diameter, diameter of spring wire, num-
0 if si < 0
75
Specifically, the tracking performance can be improved by
adjusting the thickness of the boundary layer. If si is over the bound-
ary layer i , SMAs are activated by the high voltage ViH to get quick
response. If si enters the boundary layer, within proper tuning of
the control gains, the voltage is reduced to avoid overshoot for
smoother and more stable response. If the value si is lower than
zero, the controller switches to zero for cooling the SMA wire. The
magnitude of the boundary layer is determined experimentally to
protect the SMA wire from overheating.
4. Simulation and experimental results
In this section, we provide a description of the experimental
setup. Three types of experiments have been performed to test and
compare the performance of the compliant actuator with the other
two conventional actuators.
4.1. Experimental setup
The experimental setup has been developed to evaluate the
performance of this compliant differential SMA actuator. Before
to set the experimental setup, each actuated SMA wire (twinned
martensite state) is passively extended to the fully de-twinned
martensite state. As shown in Fig. 7(b), an iron stick linked with a
standard weight (100 g) is connected to the coupler #1 of the actua-
tor as the testing load. The pre-strain of each SMA wire is extended
to 0.03. Including the load force, the initial strain of the upper wire
is equal to 0.0336.
Fig. 7(a) and (b) shows the schematic diagram of the control sys-
tem and a picture of the experimental setup, respectively. Lab VIEW
software (National Instruments Corp., TX) on a computer controls
the position of the actuator using a power supply (Dual-tracking
DC 6306D, Topward Electric Instrument Co., TW), an NI-PCI-6221
Data Acquisition (DAQ) card (National Instruments Corp., TX) and
a voltage amplifier. The angular position of the actuator, measured
by a shaft encoder (Omron E6B2-CWZ1X, Omron Inc., Japan) with
a resolution of 2500 pulses per turn, was collected by the DAQ
card. This DAQ card also provided two 16-bit resolution analog volt-
age outputs with a full-scale range of ± 10 V to the amplifier. Two
analog voltage channels were augmented by the amplifier with a
gain of 3.125 V/V and applied on two SMA wires separately. For
comparison, saturated PI and PI (without boundary layer and ini-
tial constant value) control strategies were programmed in the Lab
VIEW software and experimental tests have been conducted in the
following.
A comparison between this new compliant differential SMA
actuator and the other two SMA actuators was performed in two
aspects: stiffness and output angle. A Simulink model was devel-
oped in MATLAB/Simulink to simulate the joint motion of the three
different SMA actuators with the same load and same input voltage
in open loop. Based on the mathematical models of the actuation
system and the SMA stiffness definition, we can get the stiffness
of the upper SMA wire. Fig. 8 presents the simulated SMA stiff-
ness for the three different SMA actuators in a function of recovery
strain (0 → 0.015) and martensite fraction (1 → 0). It displays that
the stiffness increases from martensite phase to austenite phase
during heating process. The minimal value is equal to 3.7 kN/m
when the SMA wire is in fully martensite phase. In this compli-
as 0.0018N m/1◦ ; its equivalent stiffness of an extension spring is
(16) 1.03 kN/m. This value is determined by the parameters of the spring
ber of turns, elastic modulus of the material, and so on), depending
76 Z. Guo et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 225 (2015) 71–80
Fig. 7. (a) Block diagram configuration of the position control system and (b) experimental setup for testing.
Fig. 8. Stiffness of upper SMA wire during heating process, in which blue line,
black line and red line, represent the results of the bias, differential, and compliant
differential, SMA actuators, respectively. Abbreviation in the figure: BS: bias SMA
actuator; DI: differential SMA actuators; CD: compliant differential SMA actuators.
on the limited space between the two couplers. Thus, this spring
stiffness is lower than the SMA stiffness (ks < kM ). According to the
equivalent mechanical models in Fig. 3, the passive stiffness of the
compliant actuator includes the stiffness of the unheated SMA wire
and the bias spring, which is equal to (k2 · ks )/(k2 + ks ) (because the
torsion spring and lower SMA wire are connected in series). Thus,
the values of passive stiffness of the three SMA actuators follow the
order (k2 · ks )/(k2 + ks ) < ks < k2 . This compliant actuator has the
smallest passive stiffness. I.e. the actuator presented in this paper
has the smallest passive stiffness and is thereby the most compliant
SMA actuator.
The simulation angles for the three actuators during heating
and cooling phases are shown in Fig. 9(a). Since it has the small-
est passive stiffness, the compliant differential SMA actuator can
provide larger output angle than the other two actuators. To prove
this hypothesis and the simulation results, a constant voltage (1 V)
with the same load was applied to the upper SMA wire of the three
actuators in open loop, raising the temperature of the SMA wire by
heating. The lower SMA wire was not activated and remained as
a passive spring. The experimental results for the three actuators,
including heating and cooling phases of the upper SMA wire, are
shown in Fig. 9. The results confirm that the compliant differential
SMA actuator provides the largest angle. The maximum angular
motion of the compliant differential SMA actuator is close to 30◦ ,
while the bias SMA actuator is limited to 20◦ and the differential
SMA actuator provides only 13◦ . This limitation in angular motion is
due mainly to the high stiffness of the antagonist SMA wire. These
experimental results provide strong evidence for the theoretical
models and simulation results in Fig. 9(a). The dynamic response
Fig. 9. (a) Simulation and (b) experimental results of the three SMA actuators under
the same applied voltage, showing the load angular position over the time.
of the three actuators shows a slight position overshoot before
reaching steady-state, see Fig. 9(b). This behavior is explained with
the aid of the heat dynamics, Eq. (10). During the heating phase,
the SMA wire undergoes a phase change that persists until an
energy balance between the power input and the power loss is
reached. This energy transfer also corresponds to the temperature
response of the SMA wire. Interesting, during the cooling phase,
we observed that the three actuators have almost the same cool-
ing time. It means that the rate at which the compliant differential
SMA actuator returned to the relaxed state is faster than the other
actuators. This faster rate of the compliant differential SMA actu-
ator is provided by stored energy in the torsion spring. The above
results clearly indicate that the compliant differential SMA actuator
provides larger working range under the same voltage stimulating
condition and a faster system response.
4.2.1. Remark
The maximum speed of response of this actuator mainly
depends on the input current/voltage through the SMA wire and
the SMA wire’s stiffness. Larger current can increase the response
speed, while the current should be limited to protect the SMA
wire. In addition, the maximum working range of this compliant
mechanism depends on the mechanical range of two couplers, the
de-twinned strain of the SMA wire and the stiffness of the SMA wire.
When all wires are subjected to provide the same initial conditions
 Z. Guo et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 225 (2015) 71–80
Fig. 10. Step response of two actuators with different controllers, blue thick dashed
line, red thin solid line, dark green thick solid line, and light green thick dash-dot line
represent the reference (abbreviated as Ref), real value, current on upper SMA wire,
current on lower SMA wire, respectively: (a) bias SMA actuator using PI control, (b)
compliant differential SMA actuator using PI control, and (c) compliant differential
SMA actuator using saturated PI control.
(pre-strain, current, temperature, length, etc.), the actuator with
the softer joint will have a larger working range motion because the
resistance force will be smaller and the wires can experience larger
contraction. This is clearly shown in the simulation and experimen-
tal results.
4.3. Regulation results
In the following sections, we compare the tracking performance
between the bias SMA actuator and the compliant differential SMA
actuator. The differential SMA actuator will not be compared in
this test due to its limited angle range. Firstly, the experimental
responses to a series of step inputs were examined. For compar-
ison, the same PI controller for the two actuators and different
controllers (PI and saturated PI) for the same compliant differ-
ential SMA actuator have been implemented. The gains of both
controllers were optimized to minimize the position response time
and improve the output accuracy. The voltage boundary value is
limited under 4 V.
Fig. 10 shows position responses of both actuators with differ-
ent controllers to desired steps of 10◦ and 20◦ , and the currents
applied on both SMA wires, respectively. Fig. 10(a) illustrates the
step response of the bias SMA actuator with PI controller. We
observe that this actuator can follow the reference within a rel-
atively long time just under one channel current driving. During
the heating phase, the rise time to the 10◦ step input is approxi-
mately 4 s. For the response to 20◦ , it is slightly longer and requires
approximately 4.5 s. This is expected as the set point is further away
from the zero position, so it takes a longer time for the actuator to
reach the desired 20◦ set point. During the cooling phase, the aver-
age fall time from 20◦ to the 10◦ and from 10◦ to 0◦ is approximately
77
Table 2
Performance comparison of step response for different control methods.
Step response angle (◦ ) Time to the stable state (s) Total reduction
percentage
PI BS PI CD SPI CD
0 → 10 4 4.2 0.6 85%
10 → 20 4.5 3.5 0.5 89%
20 → 10 6 2 1 83%
10 → 0 6 2.5 1 83%
Note: Total reduction percentage: from SPI control on CD actuator to PI control on
BS actuator. PI BS: PI control for bias SMA actuator, PI CD: PI control for compliant
differential SMA actuator, SPI CD: saturated PI control for compliant differential
SMA actuator.
6 s. The joint angle reduces slowly to reach the set point under the
recovery force from the torsion spring.
Fig. 10(b) shows step response of the compliant differential
SMA actuator using the same PI controller. It is observed that the
response speed is increased under the function of two channels
currents. Compared to the bias SMA actuator, the compliant actua-
tor reaches the set point faster, while it costs in average 4 s to reach
the stable value during the heating phase, and also an overshoot
takes place in this tracking. The rise time is almost the same as the
bias SMA actuator. Specifically, to increase the response speed of
this actuator, the lower SMA wire was heated with a second channel
current during the cooling phase. This reduces the fall time to 2.5 s.
To further improve the performance, the saturated PI controller was
employed to control the compliant actuator.
As shown in Fig. 10(c), with properly adjusting the parameters,
(set the original current on the SMA wire and increase the current
during the cooling process), this controller eliminates the overshoot
and further reduces the response time. Compared to PI controller,
during the heating phase, the saturated PI controller reduces the
rise time on the 10◦ , 20◦ step input from 4.2s to 0.6 s, and 3.5 s to
0.5 s, respectively. Note that, during the cooling phase, the falling
time of step response from 20◦ to 10◦ , 10◦ to 0◦ reduces from 2.5 s to
lower than 1 s. Step response comparisons between bias SMA actu-
ator with PI controller, compliant differential SMA actuator with
PI controller and compliant differential SMA actuator with satu-
rated PI controller are shown in Table 2. The results clearly indicate
that the rise and fall times of step response are decreased signif-
icantly, as well as the response speeds both in the heating and
cooling phases are increased. The consumed time during cooling
phase is reduced over 50% from bias actuator to compliant differ-
ential actuator with the same PI controller. Therefore, the compliant
SMA actuator has better performance than the bias SMA actuator.
Furthermore, our proposed saturated control method can further
improve the response results over conventional PI controller. So we
achieve a step response time reduction of more than 80%.
4.4. Tracking results
This section presents the comparison of tracking responses to
a series of sine inputs with varying frequencies. Fig. 11 shows
the tracking results with 0.05 Hz sinusoidal reference trajectory.
Fig. 11(a), is the result of PI control for bias SMA actuator, showing
a little disturbance in the rising period of tracking and 2◦ error in
the peak value. Some fluctuations appear in the recorded current of
SMA wire, which cause the disturbance in tracking. The actuator can
track the reference in the falling process with the help of the torsion
spring. Fig. 11(b) illustrates the tracking results of the compliant dif-
ferential SMA actuator under PI control. The tracking performance
is improved obviously by controlling two current channels on the
SMA wires. The real position smoothly follows the reference tra-
jectory, while a time lag is observed at the beginning of rising and
falling time of the sine wave. As shown in Fig. 11(c), the tracking
78 Z. Guo et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 225 (2015) 71–80
Fig. 11. Experimental tracking results for 0.05 Hz sinusoidal reference trajectory
showing (a) PI control for bias SMA actuator, (b) PI control for compliant differential
SMA actuator, (c) saturated PI control for compliant differential SMA actuator, and
(d) error comparison.
result using the saturated PI controller on compliant SMA actua-
tor is presented. It illustrates that the saturated PI control method
obtains more accurate and smooth tracking results than the PI con-
trol on the same actuator. Fig. 11(d) displays the error comparison
among the three different tracking. With the same PI controller for
the two different actuators, the error range is reduced from −1◦
to 2◦ to −1◦ to 1.5◦ , and the error is further decreased to −0.8◦ to
1◦ with the saturated PI control method on compliant differential
SMA actuator.
Fig. 12 shows the results with 0.1 Hz sinusoidal reference tra-
jectory tracking with the three previous ways for 0.05 Hz tracking.
Fig. 12(a) illustrates the tracking of bias SMA actuator under PI
control. By adjusting the current on the upper SMA wire, the actu-
ator can track the reference with a disturbance during the rising
time, while it follows the reference in the falling time with a larger
error. A time lag comes out because of the increased frequency. To
improve the tracking performance during the falling time, the lower
SMA wire in the compliant differential SMA actuator is activated.
The real position can follow the reference with some fluctuations,
presented in Fig. 12(b). However, it is hard to catch the peak value
with this simple PI control. We introduce the saturated PI controller
for the compliant differential SMA actuator, and a smooth, stable
and accurate tracking is obtained in Fig. 12(c). Fig. 12(d) shows the
Fig. 12. Experimental tracking results for 0.1 Hz sinusoidal reference trajectory
showing (a) PI control for bias SMA actuator, (b) PI control for compliant differential
SMA actuator, (c) saturated PI control for compliant differential SMA actuator, and
(d) error comparison.
error comparison among the different control ways. It is shown that
the saturated PI method for compliant differential SMA actuator
has the lowest error, limiting its range among −1◦ to1◦ . The out-
put error of the compliant differential SMA actuator is smaller than
the error of the bias SMA actuator, using for both the same PI con-
troller. The error is reduced from −2.5◦ to1.5◦ to −1.5◦ to1.5◦ . The
error has been further minimized with the saturated PI controller.
In addition, it is obviously observed that the tracking performance
is smooth and the actuator is able to reach the peak of the sinusoidal
reference trajectory.
Comparing the results of the same actuator with the same con-
troller and different reference frequencies (from 0.05 Hz to 0.1 Hz),
it is observed that each tracking error rises gradually as the fre-
quency increases. It takes a finite amount of time for the actuators
to track for the limited cycle time. The actuators begin to lag
behind the desired trajectory due to the slow response speed
of the SMA wire. Nonetheless, these figures demonstrate better
tracking performance for the compliant differential SMA actua-
tor over the bias SMA actuator with the same PI controller, and
the tracking performance has been further enhanced with the
substitution of the conventional PI controller for the saturated PI
controller.
 Z. Guo et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 225 (2015) 71–80
5. Discussion
From above experimental investigation, the compliant differ-
ential SMA actuator possesses the merits of both conventional
SMA actuators. Although the differential SMA actuator has faster
response than bias SMA actuator, its working range is limited for
the increasing stiffness in the inverse phase transformation. In the
current study, a soft spring is employed in the actuator design to
reduce the stiffness as well as to enlarge the working range of
differential SMA actuator. A saturated PI law has been developed
that demonstrated better tracking performance by introducing two
switching surfaces into the control structure. Experimental results
also reveal that saturated PI controller has quicker response speed
and higher accuracy than the PI controller in the position tracking of
the same compliant differential SMA actuator. With this saturated
PI controller, 0.1 Hz sinusoidal tracking on 0.25 mm diameter SMA
wire has been implemented. The tracking frequency can be fur-
ther improved with smaller diameter SMA wires, since these have
lower heating and cooling times. Nevertheless, the smaller diam-
eter SMA wires also provide lower contraction force. Therefore, in
practical application, a tradeoff between the response speed and
output force should be considered.
In this study, we introduced a mechanical solution to improve
the performance of conventional SMA actuators with a sim-
ple prototype. Such a design has the potential applications in
robotic systems, such as for flexible multi-section surgical tools
or rehabilitation finger design. According to real application,
mechanical modification could be considered to meet the spe-
cific requirements: the size of coupling elements can be reduced
to couple a smaller spring, multi-section SMA actuated joints can
be connected together to increase the degree of freedom of the
robot.
Due to the limited strain of SMA wire, long wire was usu-
ally used to obtain large rotational angle in the traditional SMA
actuators. Since our method increased the angle of the SMA actu-
ator, it would be valuable to reduce the length of SMA wire for
the desired motion. This study will be investigated in the future.
It is also noteworthy mentioning that de-twinned strain of SMA
wire is an important factor [26]. It can affect the working range
of the SMA based actuator. In the current work, to minimize any
possible influence on our results, the same loading and current
condition to all three actuators were adopted to provide the same
initial conditions. However, considering the importance of this
factor, a further study is under consideration. In addition, the
hysteresis phenomenon can be found in the open loop experi-
ment for the SMA actuator during heating and cooling process.
Since the primary focuses of the present study was the compari-
son of working range, response rate and control performance, we
will pay more attention to the hysteresis testing and compensa-
tion of this SMA actuator using advanced control strategy in the
future work.
6. Conclusion
In this work, we introduced a novel compliant differential SMA
actuator incorporating two antagonistic SMA wires and a torsion
spring. This design allows a wider range of angular motion com-
pared to conventional SMA actuators. Experimental comparison
between the new compliant SMA actuator vis-à-vis conventional
SMA actuators has been conducted to evaluate the performance
enhancement in terms of tracking accuracy and settling time.
Future work will focus on the design of advanced control strategies
[27–29] and the applications to robotic systems for this compliant
SMA actuator.
79
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by MINDEF-NUS/NTU-JPP-11-03.
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Biographies
Zhao Guo received his Ph.D. degree in mechanical Engineering from the Institute
of Robotics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), Shanghai, China, in 2012. He is
currently a Research Fellow at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, National
University of Singapore (NUS). His research interests include compliant actuator
design, SMA actuator for bio-inspired robots, exoskeleton, and neuromuscular-
model based robotic control.
80 Z. Guo et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 225 (2015) 71–80
Yongping Pan received the Ph.D. degree in Control Theory and Control Engineer-
ing from the South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China, in 2011.
From 2011 to 2013, he was a Research Fellow of the School of Electrical and Elec-
tronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is currently a
Research Fellow of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University
of Singapore, Singapore. He serves as the Reviewer for several flagship international
journals. His research interests include adaptive control, computational intelligence,
rehabilitation robots and embedded systems.
Liang-Boon Wee received his PhD in Space Robotics at The University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, in 1993. Liang-Boon started his career as a project engineer in 1987,
working on design of computer simulation and the development of flight control
systems. Throughout his career in DSO, National Laboratories he has worked on var-
ious acquisition and development projects. His area of expertise has also expanded
to include guidance research, systems architecture research as well as computer
vision and image processing research. His current appointment is Chief Engineer in
the Guided Systems Division.
Haoyong Yu received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, in 2002. He is an Assistant Professor of
Department of Biomedical Engineering at National University of Singapore (NUS).
Before joining NUS in September 2010, he worked in Defense Science Organization
(DSO), National Laboratories of Singapore as a Principal Member of Technical Staff,
where he worked on exoskeleton and humanoid robots as well as intelligent ground
and aerial robots. His current research at NUS focuses on robotics for robotics in
surgery, neuro rehabilitation, assistive technologies, and bio-inspired robots. Dr. Yu
is a member of IEEE. He received the Best poster award in the 2013 IEEE Life Sciences
Grand Challenges Conference.