I am looking for some kind of artificial muscle material which contracts with a small voltage.
I think it is called a Dielectric Elastomer Actuator but I want to be able to apply a small voltage and for this fishin-line-kind-of-material to contract making it shorter. Ideally it would be 1-3mm in diameter.
Does anyone know where I should be looking to buy or find out more about this material please? I just have no idea where to start looking to buy this as all I can find are scientific papers on the process and how the scientists have made them in the lab.
Researching more, it appears as if I need Ionic polymeric material which has a much lower operating voltage of 1-5V whereas the dielectric elastomer needs hundreds of volts (
see this report) I am hoping to run this material from a microprocessor like a RaspberryPi or Arduino.