Actuators (Apr 2019)

Modeling and System Integration for a Thin Pneumatic Rubber 3-DOF Actuator

  • Shuhei Kawamura,
  • Mizuki Sudani,
  • Mingcong Deng,
  • Yuichi Noge,
  • Shuichi Wakimoto

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/act8020032
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 2
p. 32

Abstract

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Recently, soft actuators have been getting increased attention within various fields. The actuators are composed of flexible materials and driven by pneumatic pressure. A thin pneumatic rubber actuator generating 3 degrees of freedom motion, called 3-DOF micro-hand, has small diameter McKibben artificial muscles which generate a contraction force in the axial direction. By this structure, the micro-hand contracts in the longitudinal direction and bends in any direction by changing the applied air pressure pattern to the artificial muscles. The input–output relation of the micro-hand, however, is complicated and has not been modeled. In this paper, modeling for 3-DOF micro-hand is proposed. Moreover, the experimental system is built for the micro-hand and the proposed model is evaluated by using the experimental results.

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