It is well known the needs of finding new technologies for robotic systems actuations, with the same efficiency of the natural muscles. The common actuators have better agility and force when compared to natural muscles, but the dimensions and weight are bigger and for that the demand of energy necessary for the actuation is higher. Smaller and cheaper robot manipulators could exist if they were able to use natural muscles to drive them. At the same time, industries would spend less money with energy and manipulators. This work studies the behavior of artificial muscles based on dielectric elastomers (VHB4905) through the development of a test bench with force transducer, including the specification of all the equipments and the development of a high voltage circuit (10kV maximum). During the development and implementation of the circuit, problems inherent to high voltage manipulation were found. Those problems were shown and tolerable solutions were taken, so that the experiments were feasible. Mathematic models of some of the main configurations for actuators were developed. One of those models (from a typical configuration) was compared with experimental results with a maximum absolute error of 1% (26.7mN) of the real value. Experiments with fixed frame actuators were made with 223% of strain, showing a much higher performance compared to natural muscles. With one of the mathematic models, a PID controller with adjustable gains was developed and presented better results, for a step response, when compared to a standard PID controller. This last one do not take into account the non-linearities and for that it behaviors with great sensibility when subjected to high voltages (close to dielectric breakdown). The effectiveness of the proposed control technique was proved experimentally.