We propose a new framework for the simulation of facial muscle and flesh that so significantly improves the technique that it allows for immediate mainstream use of anatomically and biomechanically accurate muscle models as a bread and butter technique in a high-end production quality pipeline. The key idea is to create a blendshape system for the muscles that gives the precise directability an...

New pneumatic actuators developed in the author's laboratory will be presented with their applications to new mechatronics. Examples of them are a pneumatic rubber actuator for compliant robots, a micro pneumatic tube actuator assisting the colonscope insertion, a pneumatic stepping motor with high torque and resolution, a pneumatic drive bicycle, an intelligent pneumatic cylinder which has enc...

Walking on rough terrains still remains a challenge that needs to be addressed for biped robots because the unevenness on the ground can easily disrupt the walking stability. This paper proposes a novel foot system with passively adjustable stiffness for biped robots which is adaptable to small-sized bumps on the ground. The robotic foot is developed by attaching eight pneumatic variable stiffn...

Pneumatic actuation systems are widely used in industrial automation, such as drilling, sawing, squeezing, gripping, and spraying. Also, they are used in motion control of materials and parts handling, packing machines, machine tools, food processing industry and in robotics; e.g. two-legged robot. In this paper, a Neural Network based intelligent PI controller is designed and simulated to incr...

An angle trajectory tracking of a 3-DOF (Degree Of Freedom) pneumatic motion platform by the NI Compact RIO control system was investigated. In this study, the positions of moving platform are changed by extension or shortening of the three pneumatic cylinders. The response of pneumatic cylinder is relatively slow for motor actuator and can get a good single-axis trajectory control by tradition...

Pleated pneumatic artificial muscles (PPAMs), which have recently been developed at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Department of Mechanical Engineering are brought forward as robotic actuators in this paper. Their distinguishing feature is their pleated design, as a result of which their contraction forces and maximum displacement are very high compared to other pneumatic artificial muscles. T...

computational fluid dynamics (cfd) simulations of gas-solid flow through a positive low-pressure pneumatic conveyor were performed using eulerian-eulerian framework. pressure drop in pneumatic conveying pipelines, creation and destruction of plugs along the horizontal and vertical pipes, effect of 90° elbows and u-bends on cross-section concentrations, and rope formation and dispersion were num...

This paper presents the design of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) compatible pneumatic actuator regulated by piezoelectric valve for image guided robotic intervention. After comparing pneumatic, hydraulic and piezoelectric MRI compatible actuation technologies, we present a piezoelectric valve regulated pneumatic actuation system consisted of PC, custom servo board driver, piezoelectric valv...

In practical electro-pneumatic or hydraulic servo mechanism, there is usually an unavoidable operating delay time in the solenoid valves. This may sometimes cause closed-loop instability if the time delay is not treated carefully in the control system designs. Furthermore, pneumatic actuators can offer high performance at low cost, but are often suffered from external disturbances depending on ...