A Seven-degrees-of-freedom Robot-arm Driven by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles for Humanoid Robots

Braided pneumatic artificial muscles, and in particular the better known type with a double helical braid usually called the McKibben muscle, seem to be at present the best means for motorizing robotarms with artificial muscles. Their ability to develop high maximum force associated with lightness and a compact cylindrical shape, as well as their analogical behavior with natural skeletal muscle were very well emphasized in the 1980s by the development of the Bridgestone “soft robot” actuated by “rubbertuators”. Recent publications have presented ways for modeling McKibben artificial muscle as well as controlling its highly non-linear dynamic behavior. However, fewer studies have concentrated on analyzing the integration of artificial muscles with robot-arm architectures since the first Bridgestone prototypes were designed. In this paper we present the design of a 7R anthropomorphic robot-arm entirely actuated by antagonistic McKibben artificial muscle pairs. The validation of the robot-arm architecture was performed in a teleoperation mode. KEY WORDS—anthropomorphic robot-arm, artificial muscle, McKibben muscle