Design and control of a manipulator arm driven by pneumatic muscle actuators

It seems that the pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) have a very great potential in industrial applications for the actuation of new types of robots and manipulators. Their properties such as compactness, high strength, high power-to-weight ratio, inherent safety and simplicity are worthy features in advanced robotics. In this paper we describe the design, construction and experimental testing of a single-joint manipulator arm actuated by pneumatic muscle actuators. An antagonistic muscle pair is used in a linear translational sense to produce a force or in a rotational sense to produce a required torque on the pulley. The concept, operating principle and elementary properties of pneumatic muscle actuators are explained. A nonlinear mathematical model of the manipulator arm driven by pneumatic artificial muscles and controlled with proportional control valve is derived, which is used in a numerical simulation program. The experiments were carried out on practically realized manipulator actuated by pair of muscle actuators set into antagonism configuration.