A Study on Actuators of the Artificial Muscular Type (Structure and Characteristics of Serial Parallel Types of Pneumatic Actuators)

Abstract

In this paper, according to the viewpoint of bionics, we propose a new structure, an artificial muscular type of actuator, which is similar to living muscle. Using a rubber tube enveloped with fiber net, we created a single-fiber artificial muscle with several contraction units. We propose a new method for forming artificial muscle groups, in which multiple bunches of artificial muscle are used, and design a pneumatic system, which uses CO2 gas as the power source. Using the system, we measure various characteritsics and properties of the artificial muscle. The results indicated that this artificial muscle can effectively improve the contraction force, contraction rate, and load capacity. On the basis of characteristic measurement, we also designed a model for the artificial muscle, and obtained the relationship between pressure and contraction displacement. Experimental results show that the model of the artificial muscle is reasonable. © 1993, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers. All rights reserved.