Flexor mechanism of robot arm using pneumatic muscle actuators

This paper focuses on explaining the proposition of an actuator system using a pneumatic artificial muscle and a robot arm we developed. The pneumatic artificial muscle is light weight, and has high output and flexibility. Therefore, by incorporating this into the actuator of a robot arm, a light and flexible mechanism can be created and protection against collision etc. can be ensured. However, in the case of automatic balancing using a simple pneumatic artificial muscle as an actuator, it is difficult to realize enough joint drive angle, because the contractive capability of the artificial muscle is limited. In this study, the structure of the pneumatic artificial muscle and the contraction characteristics are described and the structure of the actuator system offset - posting the newly devised artificial muscle is explained. In addition, the test results for contraction characteristics and system effectiveness are shown. From function tests of the robot arm designed based on the above characteristics, we confirmed the system has a joint drive angle equal to the human arm.