The utilization of pneumatic muscles in the actuation of robotized systems is still in its early stages, hence the requirement of a study of such constructive solutions. Consequently the paper presents the constructive solution and performance of a robotized arm actuated by pneumatic muscles. This system is mounted on a wheelchair for persons with locomotive disabilities. The main reason underl...

A vision-based approach to the motion control of pneumatic group actuators is presented. Sensing of plate locations consisting of the pneumatic group actuator is essential to cope with the variation of elastic tubes of the actuator. Plate locations are measured by a vision system and the motion of the actuator is controlled using a roughly identified relationship between air pressure imposed on...

Based on flexible pneumatic bending joint and flexible pneumatic spherical joint, a kind of flexible pneumatic 5-DOF finger is proposed, which is composed of two bending joints and a spherical joint. The mathematic model of flexible pneumatic spherical joint is further analyzed. On the researching foundation of flexible pneumatic bending joint and flexible pneumatic spherical joint, the kinemat...

In this work a pneumatically driven mock left ventricle and a native left ventricle are modeled and alternatively connected to the numerical model of a closed circulatory system comprising the systemic circulation, the left atrium, and inlet and outlet ventricular valves. By simulating physiological changes of the system working conditions, behavior and preload sensitivity of the pneumatic vent...

To achieve more accurate tracking control, a control strategy for servo pneumatic systems based on the feedback linearization theory is presented. The nonlinear pneumatic actuator system is transformed into a linear system description, with a linear input–output map by regular static state feedback and state coordinate transformation. A servo tracking controller is then developed for the system...

The paper describes the identification of the variable critical gain and natural frequency of the pneumatic cylinder using the self-excited oscillations method. The pneumatic drives are characterized by the low stiffness of the pneumatic cylinder which depends on the piston position and determines the natural frequency of the cylinder. The variety of the stiffness in dependence on the piston po...

This work for the first time presents the full integration and automation concept for a range of bioassays leveraged by cascading a centrifugo-pneumatic valving scheme to sequentially move several liquids through shared channel segments for multi-step sample preparation into the detection zone. This novel centrifugo-pneumatic liquid handling significantly simplifies system manufacture by obviat...

For research into bipedal walking machines, autonomous operation is an important issue. The key engineering problem is to keep the weight of the actuation system small enough. For our 2D prototype MIKE, we solve this problem by applying pneumatic McKibben actuators on a passive dynamic biped design. In this paper we present the design and construction of MIKE and elaborate on the most crucial s...

For robotic systems that use on/off (solenoid) pneumatic actuators, a sliding mode control law for precise position control and low switching (open-close) activity of the valves is presented in this paper. Given a pneumatic actuator with two chambers and four solenoid valves, there are sixteen possible input combinations defined directly from the state of the four on/off valves present in the s...

A new kind of pneumatic climbing robot is presented to meet the requirements of glass-wall cleaning for high-rise buildings, which is totally actuated by pneumatic cylinders and attached to the glass wall with vacuum suckers. Using the pneumatic actuators the climbing robot can be made lightweight and dexterous. At the same time the movement driven by pneumatic actuators has the characteristic ...