Journal articles: 'Pneumatic actuation'

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Wang, Xu Dong, Heng Wei Chen, Liao Wang, Wen Zhou, and Yi Qing Li. "Design and Analysis of Pneumatic Bending Actuator Used in Soft Robotics." Advances in Science and Technology 105 (April 2021): 194–201. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/ast.105.194.

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Pneumatic soft actuators can change their shapes under pneumatic pressure actuation and are capable of continuous bending. However, the air chambers inside will expand during the actuation process and cause nonlinear problems. Therefore pneumatic actuators are difficulties to model. In this paper, three types of bending actuators with different air chamber shapes are designed and the finite element model (FEM) is developed to simulate the deformation under different air pressure actuation. A prototype of the bending actuator is fabricated and a method to limit the expansion of the air chamber is designed based on the FEM results, which can effectively improve the expansion and the response of the actuator under low air pressure conditions through experimental comparison.

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Bharadwaj, Deepak, and Durga Dutt. "Design and Development of Low-Level Automation for the Picking and Placing of the Object Using Pneumatic Suction." Journal Européen des Systèmes Automatisés 54, no. 6 (December 29, 2021): 865–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.18280/jesa.540608.

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Pneumatics suction is being used in the food factory for picking and placing the ingredients of food. A clean environment inside the food factory is very much needed the maintain the quality of packaging food. The present work focuses on the low level of automation so that investment cost for processing the raw ingredient goes down. Two double-acting pneumatic cylinders, one pneumatic suction gripper, three pneumatic direction control valves, one screw compressor, one DC motor, two relays, a Push button, and a 24-volt power supply have been used the implement the system. A combination of pneumatic actuation and electrical actuation is used for controlling the motion of the system. A simple control ON/OFF system was used for the actuation. Pneumatic component drive with the help of compressed air via a direction control valve and motor direction control using the relay. By pressing the push button whole, the setup can be controlled in a very easier way and it is very user-friendly for the operator. Several testings have been done on the setup and an excellent result were obtained during execution.

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Dragone, Donatella, Luigi Randazzini, Alessia Capace, Francesca Nesci, Carlo Cosentino, Francesco Amato, Elena De Momi, Roberto Colao, Lorenzo Masia, and Alessio Merola. "Design, Computational Modelling and Experimental Characterization of Bistable Hybrid Soft Actuators for a Controllable-Compliance Joint of an Exoskeleton Rehabilitation Robot." Actuators 11, no. 2 (January 22, 2022): 32. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/act11020032.

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This paper presents the mechatronic design of a biorobotic joint with controllable compliance, for innovative applications of “assist-as-needed” robotic rehabilitation mediated by a wearable and soft exoskeleton. The soft actuation of robotic exoskeletons can provide some relevant advantages in terms of controllable compliance, adaptivity and intrinsic safety of the control performance of the robot during the interaction with the patient. Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (PAMs), which belong to the class of soft actuators, can be arranged in antagonistic configuration in order to exploit the variability of their mechanical compliance for the optimal adaptation of the robot performance during therapy. The coupling of an antagonistic configuration of PAMs with a regulation mechanism can achieve, under a customized control strategy, the optimal tuning of the mechanical compliance of the exoskeleton joint over full ranges of actuation pressure and joint rotation. This work presents a novel mechanism, for the optimal regulation of the compliance of the biorobotic joint, which is characterized by a soft and hybrid actuation exploiting the storage/release of the elastic energy by bistable Von Mises elastic trusses. The contribution from elastic Von Mises structure can improve both the mechanical response of the soft pneumatic bellows actuating the regulation mechanism and the intrinsic safety of the whole mechanism. A comprehensive set of design steps is presented here, including the optimization of the geometry of the pneumatic bellows, the fabrication process through 3D printing of the mechanism and some experimental tests devoted to the characterization of the hybrid soft actuation. The experimental tests replicated the main operating conditions of the regulation mechanism; the advantages arising from the bistable hybrid soft actuation were evaluated in terms of static and dynamic performance, e.g., pressure and force transition thresholds of the bistable mechanism, linearity and hysteresis of the actuator response.

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Mirvakili, Seyed M., Douglas Sim, Ian W. Hunter, and Robert Langer. "Actuation of untethered pneumatic artificial muscles and soft robots using magnetically induced liquid-to-gas phase transitions." Science Robotics 5, no. 41 (April 15, 2020): eaaz4239. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.aaz4239.

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Pneumatic artificial muscles have been widely used in industry because of their simple and relatively high-performance design. The emerging field of soft robotics has also been using pneumatic actuation mechanisms since its formation. However, these actuators/soft robots often require bulky peripheral components to operate. Here, we report a simple mechanism and design for actuating pneumatic artificial muscles and soft robotic grippers without the use of compressors, valves, or pressurized gas tanks. The actuation mechanism involves a magnetically induced liquid-to-gas phase transition of a liquid that assists the formation of pressure inside the artificial muscle. The volumetric expansion in the liquid-to-gas phase transition develops sufficient pressure inside the muscle for mechanical operations. We integrated this actuation mechanism into a McKibben-type artificial muscle and soft robotic arms. The untethered McKibben artificial muscle generated actuation strains of up to 20% (in 10 seconds) with associated work density of 40 kilojoules/meter3, which favorably compares with the peak strain and peak energy density of skeletal muscle. The untethered soft robotic arms demonstrated lifting objects with an input energy supply from only two Li-ion batteries.

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Yu, Qihui, Jianwei Zhai, Qiancheng Wang, Xuxiao Zhang, and Xin Tan. "Experimental Study of a New Pneumatic Actuating System Using Exhaust Recycling." Sustainability 13, no. 4 (February 4, 2021): 1645. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su13041645.

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Pneumatic actuating systems are an important power system in industrial applications. Due to exhaust loss, however, pneumatic actuating systems have suffered from a low utilization of compressed air. To recycle the exhaust energy, a novel pneumatic circuit was proposed to realize energy savings through recycling exhaust energy. The circuit consisted of three two-position three-way switch valves, which were used to control the exhaust flows into a gas tank or the ambient environment. This paper introduced the energy recovery configuration and working principles and built a mathematical model of its working process. Then, the mathematical model was verified by experiments. Finally, through experiments in which the air supply pressure, the critical pressure and the volume of the gas tank were regulated, the energy recovery characteristics of the pneumatic actuating system were obtained. Using the new circuit, the experimental results showed that the energy recovery efficiency exceeded 23%. When the air supply pressure was set to 5 bar, 6 bar, and 7 bar, the time required for pneumatic actuation to complete the three working cycles were 5.2 s, 5.3 s, and 5.9 s, respectively. When the critical pressure was set to 0 bar, 0.5 bar, 1 bar, and 1.5 bar, the times for pneumatic actuation to complete the three working cycles were 4.9 s, 5.1 s, 5.2 s, and 5.3 s, respectively. When the volume of the gas tank was set to 2 L, 3 L, 4 L, and 5 L, the number of working cycles was 3, 4, 5, and 6, respectively. This paper provides a new method of cylinder exhaust recycling and lays a good foundation for pneumatic energy savings.

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Chambers, Jonathan M., and Norman M. Wereley. "Analysis of Pneumatic Artificial Muscles and the Inelastic Braid Assumption." Actuators 11, no. 8 (August 4, 2022): 219. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/act11080219.

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Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) are becoming an increasingly popular form of soft actuator due to their unique actuation characteristics. The creation of accurate PAM actuation models is important for their successful implementation. However, PAM studies often employ actuation models that use simplifying assumptions which make the models easier to formulate and use, but at the cost of reduced accuracy. One of the most commonly used assumptions, the inelastic braid assumption, suggests that the braid does not stretch, and therefore would not affect its geometry or actuation force. Although this assumption has often been cited as a likely source of model error, its use has persevered for decades due to researchers’ inability to directly measure the effects of braid elasticity. The recent development of a photogrammetric method to accurately measure PAM geometry now enables this analysis. This study seeks to assess the current default adoption of the inelastic braid assumption in PAM models by attempting to quantify the braid elasticity effects. This research finds that current models that use the inelastic braid assumption can underestimate PAM diameter by as much as 30%, and overestimate actuation force by as much as 70%. These results show that braid elasticity can have a substantial effect on the geometry and actuation force of PAMs, and demonstrates that the inelastic braid assumption may not be a suitable universal assumption for PAM modeling and analyses, especially when low-stiffness braid materials are used.

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Jun-liang, Ding, Wu Yun, and Zhou You-tian. "Discharge characteristic and flow control experiment for pneumatic actuator of dielectric barrier discharge multistage plasma." International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 57, no. 1 (December 1, 2018): 41–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0020720918813815.

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Test and diagnosis of the characteristics of the air flow induced by the pneumatic actuation of the plasma are the important basis for the plasma flow control. In order to well understand the electrical characteristics of the pneumatic actuation of the plasma and the influence of the actuation voltage amplitude and the phase on the induced flow characteristics, the dielectric barrier discharge actuators symmetrically distributed were selected for the experimental research. The experiment result shows that the discharge form of the actuators symmetrically distributed is filamentary discharge, uniformly occurring around the high-voltage electrodes, and this is different from the discharge picture of the actuators asymmetrically distributed; when the voltage applied on the high-voltage electrode near to the actuators has the same amplitude and phase, the induced directional jet flow is vertical to the actuator surface, and the speed is at the order of meter per second; the change of the amplitude or phase of the voltage applied on the high-voltage electrode of the actuator can induce a jet flow towards the upper left or the upper right, but cannot effectively increase the induced airflow velocity.

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NORITSUGU, Toshiro. "Pneumatic Soft Actuator for a Human-Friendly Actuation System." Proceedings of the JFPS International Symposium on Fluid Power 1999, no. 4 (1999): 605–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.5739/isfp.1999.605.

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Besoiu, Sorin, Vistrian Măties, and Donca Radu. "Mechatronic Design of a Planar Parallel Robot Actuated by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles." Solid State Phenomena 166-167 (September 2010): 57–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/ssp.166-167.57.

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The pneumatic actuation is widely used in robotics. The actuators based on pneumatic artificial muscles are unconventional actuation systems which use the shortening by increase of the volume property which generate an axial force. They have a very good force/volume ratio and some advantages compared with conventional pneumatic actuation. This paper presents the mechatronic design of a PRRRP Biglide planar parallel robot actuated by four artificial muscles in antagonist configuration. The control system is based on an 8-bit microcontroller based development board and the position and force control is made by means of pressure regulation using proportional pressure regulators. It was determined the workspace of PRRRP Biglide parallel robot for different strokes of actuators using discretisation method in Matlab environment.

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Rhie, Wonsei, and Toshiro Higuchi. "Screw-Driven Multi-Channel Peristaltic Pump for Pneumatic Micro Actuator System." Key Engineering Materials 447-448 (September 2010): 478–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/kem.447-448.478.

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The authors have developed a miniaturized peristaltic pump which is characterized by multi-channel, low pulsation, high pressure resistance and portability. The pump mainly consists of a disposable pumping channel unit and reusable actuating parts. The pumping channel unit, made of silicone elastomers, has eight pumping channels. The operation principle is based on the peristaltic motion of pumping channels that are occluded by the screw shaft. The shaft rotating inside the pumping channel unit has a spirally arranged projection which deforms and closes down the channels. While the shaft rotates, the pinched locations in the channels move either way according to direction of rotation, squeezing out the air inside. The maximum discharge pressure generated was about 160 kPa at rotating speeds of 30 ~ 180 rpm. A micro pneumatic actuator was fabricated to demonstrate the performance of the pump. The validity of the pump for pneumatic actuation was reported.

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Vocke, Robert D., Curt S. Kothera, Anirban Chaudhuri, Benjamin K. S. Woods, and Norman M. Wereley. "Design and testing of a high-specific work actuator using miniature pneumatic artificial muscles." Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 23, no. 3 (January 9, 2012): 365–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1045389x11431743.

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Micro-air vehicle (MAV) development is moving toward smaller and more capable platforms to enable missions such as indoor reconnaissance. This miniaturization creates challenging constraints on volume and energy generation/storage for all systems onboard. Actuator technologies must also address these miniaturization goals. Much research has focused on active material systems, such as piezoelectric materials and synthetic jets, but these advanced technologies have specific, but limited, capability. Conventional servo technology has also encountered concerns over miniaturization. Motivation has thus been established to develop a small-scale actuation technology prototype based on pneumatic artificial muscles, which are known for their lightweight, high-output, and low-pressure operation. The miniature actuator provides bidirectional control capabilities for a range of angles, rates, and loading conditions. Problems addressed include the scaling of the pneumatic actuators and design of a mechanism to adjust the kinematic load-stroke profile to suit the pneumatic actuators. The kinematics of the actuation system was modeled, and a number of bench-top configurations were fabricated, assembled, and experimentally characterized. Angular deflection and angular rate output of the final bench-top prototype system are presented, showing an improvement over conventional servo motors used in similar applications, especially in static or low-frequency operation.

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Higueras-Ruiz, Diego R., Michael W. Shafer, and Heidi P. Feigenbaum. "Cavatappi artificial muscles from drawing, twisting, and coiling polymer tubes." Science Robotics 6, no. 53 (April 21, 2021): eabd5383. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.abd5383.

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Compliant, biomimetic actuation technologies that are both efficient and powerful are necessary for robotic systems that may one day interact, augment, and potentially integrate with humans. To this end, we introduce a fluid-driven muscle-like actuator fabricated from inexpensive polymer tubes. The actuation results from a specific processing of the tubes. First, the tubes are drawn, which enhances the anisotropy in their microstructure. Then, the tubes are twisted, and these twisted tubes can be used as a torsional actuator. Last, the twisted tubes are helically coiled into linear actuators. We call these linear actuators cavatappi artificial muscles based on their resemblance to the Italian pasta. After drawing and twisting, hydraulic or pneumatic pressure applied inside the tube results in localized untwisting of the helical microstructure. This untwisting manifests as a contraction of the helical pitch for the coiled configuration. Given the hydraulic or pneumatic activation source, these devices have the potential to substantially outperform similar thermally activated actuation technologies regarding actuation bandwidth, efficiency, modeling and controllability, and practical implementation. In this work, we show that cavatappi contracts more than 50% of its initial length and exhibits mechanical contractile efficiencies near 45%. We also demonstrate that cavatappi artificial muscles can exhibit a maximum specific work and power of 0.38 kilojoules per kilogram and 1.42 kilowatts per kilogram, respectively. Continued development of this technology will likely lead to even higher performance in the future.

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Tiwari, Rashi, Michael A. Meller, Karl B. Wajcs, Caris Moses, Ismael Reveles, and Ephrahim Garcia. "Hydraulic artificial muscles." Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 23, no. 3 (February 2012): 301–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1045389x12438627.

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This article presents hydraulic artificial muscles as a viable alternative to pneumatic artificial muscles. Despite the actuation mechanism being similar to its pneumatic counterpart, hydraulic artificial muscles have not been widely studied. Hydraulic artificial muscles offer all the same advantages of pneumatic artificial muscles, such as compliance, light weight, low maintenance, and low cost, when compared to traditional fluidic cylinder actuators. Muscle characterization in isometric and isobaric conditions are discussed and compared to pneumatic artificial muscles. A quasi-static model incorporating the effect of mesh angle, friction, and muscle volume change throughout actuation is presented. This article also discusses the use of hydraulic artificial muscles for low-pressure hydraulic mesoscale robotic leg.

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Bobrow, J. E., and F. Jabbari. "Adaptive Pneumatic Force Actuation and Position Control." Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control 113, no. 2 (June 1, 1991): 267–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.2896374.

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In this paper an implementation of an adaptive control law for a pneumatic actuator is presented. Pneumatic actuators are of particular interest for robotic applications because of their large force output per unit weight, and their low cost. Stabilization of a pneumatic actuator is difficult if a high bandwidth closed-loop system is desired. This is because of the compressibility of air, and of the nonlinear characteristics of air flowing through a variable area orifice. Further complications arise from the geometry of the mechanism because the equations of motion are highly nonlinear. The order of the dominant dynamics is shown to vary with the position of the mechanicsm.

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Khodasevych, Iryna, Wayne S. T. Rowe, and Arnan Mitchell. "RECONFIGURABLE FISHNET METAMATERIAL USING PNEUMATIC ACTUATION." Progress In Electromagnetics Research B 38 (2012): 57–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.2528/pierb11102505.

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Li, Lei, Chao Liu, Hongwen Ren, and Qiong-Hua Wang. "Fluidic Optical Switch by Pneumatic Actuation." IEEE Photonics Technology Letters 25, no. 4 (February 2013): 338–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/lpt.2013.2238620.

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Zhang, Wen Hai, Ling Qin, Ji Yao Wang, and Wei Xu. "Design of squeezing-tube-driven pump for soft pneumatic robotics based on spiral spring winding." Applied Physics Letters 122, no. 9 (February 27, 2023): 093702. http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0135330.

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Aiming at the demand for high-speed, easy-controllability, and integration of pneumatic soft robots and elastomer actuators, this study presents a squeezing-tube-driven pump (STDP) for soft pneumatic robotics based on spiral spring winding. This concept contains a customized spiral spring and a pneumatic tube with high-elasticity. The spiral spring is driven by an electric motor and coerced into winding deformation. Furthermore, the pneumatic tube is extruded by the spring and then the air in the tube is fast compressed to drive soft pneumatic grippers. The mechanical model and simulation are utilized to explain the operating principle of STDP. The air pressure and rotation angle of the spring under various rotation speeds are in a close linear correlation verified by the experimental results, which provides feasibility for easy controlling and rapid actuation. Finally, fast-gripping tests with an integrated gripper–pump system and a pneumatic muscle actuation test are presented to show the advantages of the proposed pump, respectively.

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Guo, Liqiang, Ke Li, Guanggui Cheng, Zhongqiang Zhang, Chu Xu, and Jianning Ding. "Design and Experiments of Pneumatic Soft Actuators." Robotica 39, no. 10 (February 17, 2021): 1806–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0263574720001514.

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SUMMARYThe soft actuator is made of superelastic material and embedded flexible material. In this paper, a kind of soft tube was designed and used to assemble two kinds of pneumatic soft actuators. The experiment and finite element analysis are used to comprehensively analyze and describe the bending, elongation, and torsion deformation of the soft actuator. The results show that the two soft actuators have the best actuation performance when the inner diameter of the soft tube is 4 mm. In addition, when the twisting pitch of the torsional actuator is 24 mm, its torsional performance is optimized. Finally, a device that can be used in the production line was assembled by utilizing those soft actuators, and some operation tasks were completed. This experiment provides some insights for the development of soft actuators with more complex motions in the future.

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Zhao, Shumi, Yisong Lei, Ziwen Wang, Jie Zhang, Jianxun Liu, Pengfei Zheng, Zidan Gong, and Yue Sun. "Biomimetic Artificial Joints Based on Multi-Material Pneumatic Actuators Developed for Soft Robotic Finger Application." Micromachines 12, no. 12 (December 20, 2021): 1593. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi12121593.

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To precisely achieve a series of daily finger bending motions, a soft robotic finger corresponding to the anatomical range of each joint was designed in this study with multi-material pneumatic actuators. The actuator as a biomimetic artificial joint was developed on the basis of two composite materials of different shear modules, and the pneumatic bellows as expansion parts was restricted by frame that made from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). A simplified mathematical model was used for the bending mechanism description and provides guidance for the multi-material pneumatic actuator fabrication (e.g., stiffness and thickness) and structural design (e.g., cross length and chamber radius), as well as the control parameter optimization (e.g., the air pressure supply). An actuation pressure of over 70 kPa is required by the developed soft robotic finger to provide a full motion range (MCP = 36°, PIP = 114°, and DIP = 75°) for finger action mimicking. In conclusion, a multi-material pneumatic actuator was designed and developed for soft robotic finger application and theoretically and experimentally demonstrated its feasibility in finger action mimicking. This study explored the mechanical properties of the actuator and could provide evidence-based technical parameters for pneumatic robotic finger design and precise control of its dynamic air pressure dosages in mimicking actions. Thereby, the conclusion was supported by the results theoretically and experimentally, which also aligns with our aim to design and develop a multi-material pneumatic actuator as a biomimetic artificial joint for soft robotic finger application.

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Chang, Ho, Yen Chen Chiu, and Chou Wei Lan. "An Innovative Design of a Measuring Equipment and Using TiO₂ Nanogrease to Reduction of Friction Force for Pneumatic Cylinder." Advanced Materials Research 317-319 (August 2011): 503–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.317-319.503.

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The purpose of the study is to measure the maximum static friction and dynamic friction in the actuation process of pneumatic cylinder after TiO2 nanoparticles are added to grease. The study makes an innovative design of a new measuring equipment of friction force, which can measure the friction force between the piston seal in pneumatic cylinder and the cylinder bore. The friction force of pneumatic cylinder bore directly affects the output dynamic property of pneumatic cylinder motion. Friction force measuring system can measure the change of friction force of pneumatic cylinder bore under the condition with different operating speeds, and can analyze the relationship between friction force of pneumatic cylinder and output dynamic property of pneumatic cylinder. Such a friction force measuring equipment takes pneumatic cylinder as an output of motive force to drive the measurement of pneumatic cylinder, and uses load cell and draw-line encoder to measure the friction force of pneumatic cylinder bore and the motion speed. In the experiment, the friction forces of pneumatic cylinder given with oil and without oil are measured respectively, achieving the friction force property of pneumatic cylinder bore when being lubricated by nanogrease added with nanoparticles of different weight percentages (wt.%). The experimental results show that adding TiO2 nanoparticles to grease can effectively decrease the friction force produced in the actuation process of pneumatic cylinder.

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Carmona, M., S. Marco, J. Samitier, M. C. Acero, J. A. Plaza, and J. Esteve. "Modeling the Thermal Actuation in a Thermo-Pneumatic Micropump." Journal of Electronic Packaging 125, no. 4 (December 1, 2003): 527–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.1604154.

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The analysis of a thermo-pneumatic actuation unit for its use in a micropump has been carried out. Coupled thermo-mechanical simulations by finite element method (FEM) (with ANSYS software) were required because of the complexity of the device. The simulation results were validated by thermal and mechanical experimental results, showing a good agreement. FEM results have been used to extract a high level model of the actuation unit that can be used to estimate the maximum performance of the micropump operation with this actuation unit. In order to identify the best frequency of operation for the pump, a quality parameter has been defined based on the thermal dynamics of the actuation unit.

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Edher, Hamza, Louise Maupas, Sunraaj Nijjer, and Armaghan Salehian. "Utilizing tension reduction in a dielectric elastomer actuator to produce compression for physiological application." Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 29, no. 5 (February 12, 2018): 998–1011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1045389x17754254.

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A common prophylaxis against peripheral vascular diseases utilizes pneumatic active compression systems. Although effective, traditional active compression systems require the use of an air compressor and pump and are, therefore, ill-suited for ambulatory use. The current work introduces a novel approach to developing an ambulatory smart material–based active compression system. The actuation system is composed of a belt-like mechanism connected in conjunction with a multi-layered dielectric elastomer actuator. The belt mechanism allows compression to be applied directly with voltage application. By doing so, the proposed design limits the period during which the actuator should be charged and improves system power efficiency and lifetime. An analytical model which defines the pre-compression exerted by the actuation system before voltage application is presented and validated experimentally. Experimental results for the belt mechanism characterization, dielectric elastomer actuator characterization and actuation system testing are presented. Through experimental testing, it is shown that the initial pre-compression can be fine-tuned by varying the parameters of the system as defined in the analytical model, and that the pre-compression has little effect on the consequent actuation output amplitudes.

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Su, Manjia, Rongzhen Xie, Yihong Zhang, Xiaopan Kang, Dongyu Huang, Yisheng Guan, and Haifei Zhu. "Pneumatic Soft Actuator with Anisotropic Soft and Rigid Restraints for Pure in-Plane Bending Motion." Applied Sciences 9, no. 15 (July 26, 2019): 2999. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/app9152999.

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A variety of soft robots with prospective applications has been developed in recent years. As a key component of a soft robot, the soft actuator plays a critical role and hence must be designed carefully according to application requirements. The soft body may deform in undesired directions if no restraint is endued, due to the isotropy of the pure soft material. For some soft robots such as an inchworm-like biped climbing robot, the actuation direction must be constrained with the appropriate structure design of the soft actuator. This study proposes a pneumatic soft actuator (PSA) to achieve pure in-plane bending motion with anisotropic soft and rigid restraints. The in-plane bending pneumatic soft actuator (2D-PSA) is developed with a composite structure where a metal hinge belt is embedded into the soft material. The design method, material choice, and fabrication process are presented in detail in this paper. Tests are conducted to measure the actuating performance of 2D-PSA in terms of the relationship between the bending angle or force and the input air pressure. Dynamic response is also measured with a laser tracker. Furthermore, a comparative experiment is carried out between the presented 2D-PSA and a general PSA, with results verifying the effectiveness of the presented 2D-PSA. A robot consisting of two serially-connected 2D-PSAs and three pneumatic suckers, which can climb on a flat surface mimicking a snake’s locomotion, is developed as an application demo of the presented 2D-PSA. Its locomotion capability presents the in-plane performance and mobility of 2D-PSA.

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Joe, Seonggun, Massimo Totaro, Hongbo Wang, and Lucia Beccai. "Development of the Ultralight Hybrid Pneumatic Artificial Muscle: Modelling and optimization." PLOS ONE 16, no. 4 (April 22, 2021): e0250325. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250325.

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Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) are one of the key technologies in soft robotics, and they enable actuation in mobile robots, in wearable devices and exoskeletons for assistive and rehabilitative purposes. While they recently showed relevant improvements, they still present quite low payload, limited bandwidth, and lack of repeatability, controllability and robustness. Vacuum-based actuation has been recently demonstrated as a very promising solution, and many challenges are still open, like generating at the same time a large contraction ratio, and a high blocking force with enhanced axial stiffness. In this paper, a novel Ultralight Hybrid PAM (UH-PAM), based on bellow-type elastomeric skin and vacuum actuation, is presented. In particular, open-cell foam is exploited as a structural backbone, together with plastic rings, all embedded in a thin skin. The design and optimization combine numerical, analytical, and experimental data. Both static and dynamic analysis are performed. The weight of the optimized actuator is only 20 g. Nevertheless, a contraction ratio up to 50% and a maximum payload of 3 kg can be achieved. From a dynamic point of view, a rise time of 0.5 s for the contraction phase is observed. Although hysteresis is significant when using the whole contraction span, it can be reduced (down to 11.5%) by tuning both the vacuum range and the operating frequency for cyclic movements. Finally, to demonstrate the potentiality of this soft actuation approach, a 3 DoFs Stewart platform is built. The feasibility of performing smooth movements by exploiting open-loop control is shown through simple and more complex handwriting figures projected on the XY plane.

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Zisser, Eddie, Avishai Sintov, Amir Shapiro, and Raziel Riemer. "Position Control of a Pneumatic Actuator Under Varying External Force." Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering 22, no. 4 (September 2, 2020): 1157–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/mme-2018-0091.

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AbstractIn this paper a high accuracy position control strategy for a pneumatic actuation system subjected to a varying external force is proposed. A novel approach for the mathematical modeling of the pneumatic actuator, based on energy methods, is presented. The Lagrangian is derived from combining the kinetic and potential energies, leading to formulation of the Euler-Lagrange equation of motion. The nonlinear backstepping method is applied to derive the control law, and the derivative of the potential energy is used as the controlled parameter. Experimental results show that tracking a sine wave of 0.1m magnitude produces a maximum error of ±0.008m while the actuator is subjected to a time varying external force with a magnitude ranging from 570N to 1150N.

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Shen, Xiangrong, Jianlong Zhang, Eric J. Barth, and Michael Goldfarb. "Nonlinear Model-Based Control of Pulse Width Modulated Pneumatic Servo Systems." Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control 128, no. 3 (November 14, 2005): 663–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.2232689.

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This paper presents a control methodology that enables nonlinear model-based control of pulse width modulated (PWM) pneumatic servo actuators. An averaging approach is developed to describe the equivalent continuous-time dynamics of a PWM controlled nonlinear system, which renders the system, originally discontinuous and possibly nonaffine in the input, into an equivalent system that is both continuous and affine in control input (i.e., transforms the system to nonlinear control canonical form). This approach is applied to a pneumatic actuator controlled by a pair of three-way solenoid actuated valves. The pneumatic actuation system is transformed into its averaged equivalent control canonical form, and a sliding mode controller is developed based on the resulting model. The controller is implemented on an experimental system, and the effectiveness of the proposed approach validated by experimental trajectory tracking.

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Chakarov, Dimitar, Ivanka Veneva, Mihail Tsveov, and Pavel Venev. "Powered Upper Limb Orthosis Actuation System Based on Pneumatic Artificial Muscles." Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics 48, no. 1 (March 1, 2018): 23–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/jtam-2018-0002.

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AbstractThe actuation system of a powered upper limb orthosis is studied in the work. To create natural safety in the mutual “man-robot” interaction, an actuation system based on pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM) is selected. Experimentally obtained force/contraction diagrams for bundles, consisting of different number of muscles are shown in the paper. The pooling force and the stiffness of the pneumatic actuators is assessed as a function of the number of muscles in the bundle and the supply pressure. Joint motion and torque is achieved by antagonistic actions through pulleys, driven by bundles of pneumatic muscles. Joint stiffness and joint torques are determined on condition of a power balance, as a function of the joint position, pressure, number of muscles and muscles

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Terryn, Seppe, Ellen Roels, Joost Brancart, Guy Van Assche, and Bram Vanderborght. "Self-Healing and High Interfacial Strength in Multi-Material Soft Pneumatic Robots via Reversible Diels–Alder Bonds." Actuators 9, no. 2 (April 30, 2020): 34. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/act9020034.

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In new-generation soft robots, the actuation performance can be increased by using multiple materials in the actuator designs. However, the lifetime of these actuators is often limited due to failure that occurs at the weak multi-material interfaces that rely almost entirely on physical interactions and where stress concentration appears during actuation. This paper proposes to develop soft pneumatic actuators out of multiple Diels–Alder polymers that can generate strong covalent bonds at the multi-material interface by means of a heat–cool cycle. Through tensile testing it is proven that high interfacial strength can be obtained between two merged Diels–Alder polymers. This merging principle is exploited in the manufacturing of multi-material bending soft pneumatic actuators in which interfaces are no longer the weakest links. The applicability of the actuators is illustrated by their operation in a soft hand and a soft gripper demonstrator. In addition, the use of Diels–Alder polymers incorporates healability in bending actuators. It is experimentally illustrated that full recovery of severe damage can be obtained by subjecting the multi-material actuators to a healing cycle.

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Silva, Alessandro Brugnera, Marc Murcia, Omid Mohseni, Ryu Takahashi, Arturo Forner-Cordero, Andre Seyfarth, Koh Hosoda, and Maziar Ahmad Sharbafi. "Design of Low-Cost Modular Bio-Inspired Electric–Pneumatic Actuator (EPA)-Driven Legged Robots." Biomimetics 9, no. 3 (March 7, 2024): 164. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics9030164.

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Exploring the fundamental mechanisms of locomotion extends beyond mere simulation and modeling. It necessitates the utilization of physical test benches to validate hypotheses regarding real-world applications of locomotion. This study introduces cost-effective modular robotic platforms designed specifically for investigating the intricacies of locomotion and control strategies. Expanding upon our prior research in electric–pneumatic actuation (EPA), we present the mechanical and electrical designs of the latest developments in the EPA robot series. These include EPA Jumper, a human-sized segmented monoped robot, and its extension EPA Walker, a human-sized bipedal robot. Both replicate the human weight and inertia distributions, featuring co-actuation through electrical motors and pneumatic artificial muscles. These low-cost modular platforms, with considerations for degrees of freedom and redundant actuation, (1) provide opportunities to study different locomotor subfunctions—stance, swing, and balance; (2) help investigate the role of actuation schemes in tasks such as hopping and walking; and (3) allow testing hypotheses regarding biological locomotors in real-world physical test benches.

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Kuznetsov, Yu P., V. L. Khimich, S. N. Khrunkov, and A. A. Krainov. "Radial two-stage microturbine for pneumatic actuation." Russian Aeronautics (Iz VUZ) 59, no. 2 (April 2016): 283–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.3103/s1068799816020215.

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Pu, J., P. R. Moore, and C. B. Wong. "Smart components-based servo pneumatic actuation systems." Microprocessors and Microsystems 24, no. 2 (April 2000): 113–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0141-9331(99)00073-3.

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32

LUQUE, A., J. QUERO, C. HIBERT, P. FLUCKIGER, and A. GANANCALVO. "Integrable silicon microfluidic valve with pneumatic actuation." Sensors and Actuators A: Physical 118, no. 1 (January 31, 2005): 144–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0924-4247(04)00542-4.

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Huang, Chun-Wei, Song-Bin Huang, and Gwo-Bin Lee. "Pneumatic micropumps with serially connected actuation chambers." Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering 16, no. 11 (September 12, 2006): 2265–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0960-1317/16/11/003.

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34

Basbous, Tammam, Rafic Younes, Adrian Ilinca, and Jean Perron. "Required time response of a variable valve actuator equiping a hybrid pneumatic–combustion engine." International Journal of Engine Research 13, no. 5 (July 10, 2012): 514–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468087412450812.

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This work is a part of a research program that aims to modify a conventional internal combustion engine and turn it into a hybrid pneumatic–combustion engine. The hybrid pneumatic–combustion engine should be able to convert mechanical energy into compressed air and convert compressed air back into mechanical energy. The potential application for the concept is any use of the internal combustion engine where the load oscillates between a negative and a positive value, such as automobiles and hybrid wind diesel systems for remote area power generation. In the first application, during vehicle decelerations, an excess of power occurs, and a negative load could be applied to the engine, whereas during vehicle accelerations, a positive load is applied. In the second application, if the generated wind power is higher than consumption demand, then the load applied to the engine could be negative, and if the generated wind power is lower than consumption demand, then the load is positive. In previous work, we exposed an optimization followed by a fuel-saving evaluation of a new hybrid pneumatic–combustion engine concept that uses a variable valve actuator system. The optimization of the valve actuation was based on ideal thermodynamic cycle modeling, assuming therefore an instant response of the variable valve actuator system. In the present work, a more realistic analysis of the system is provided by taking into consideration the dynamic response of the variable valve actuator system. Variable valve actuators have been widely studied for optimizing performance and fuel consumption of the internal combustion engine, especially in spark-ignition engines. For these engines, it is possible to reduce the pumping losses and to optimize the engine filling by controlling the intake and exhaust valve opening and closing angles, as well as their lifts. However, the variation of valve actuation crank angles required in a conventional internal combustion engine is significantly smaller than the one required in the hybrid pneumatic–combustion engine. This paper describes, through simulation, how the valve time response affects the performance of the hybrid pneumatic–combustion engine and recommends a required valve time response.

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Kim, Sungjun, Seung Ryeol Lee, Sinyoung Lee, Dongun Lee, and Dongjun Shin. "Power-Efficient Soft Pneumatic Actuator Using Spring-Frame Collateral Compression Mechanism." Actuators 11, no. 3 (March 2, 2022): 76. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/act11030076.

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With the ongoing research on soft robots, the performance of soft actuators needs to be enhanced for more wide robotic applications. Currently, most soft robots based on pneumatic actuation are capable of assisting small systems, but they are not fully suited for supporting joints requiring large force and range of motion. This is due to the actuation characteristics of the pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM); they are relatively slow, inefficient, and experience a significant force reduction when the PAM contracts. Hence, we propose a novel PAM based on a spring-frame collateral compression mechanism. With only a single compressed air source, the external mesh-covered and inner spring-frame actuators of the proposed PAM operate simultaneously to generate considerable force. Additionally, the design of the internal actuator within the void space of PAM reduces the air consumption and consequently improves the actuator’s operating speed and efficiency. We experimentally confirmed that the proposed PAM exhibited 31.2% greater force, was 25.6% faster, and consumed 21.5% lower air compared to the conventional McKibben muscles. The performance enhancement of the proposed PAM improves the performance of soft robots, allowing the development of more compact robots with greater assistive range.

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Royston, Tom, and Rajendra Singh. "Development of a Pulse-Width Modulated Pneumatic Rotary Valve for Actuator Position Control." Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control 115, no. 3 (September 1, 1993): 495–505. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.2899128.

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A new concept in the directional flow control of a high speed pneumatic actuation system is proposed. Two recent developments reported in the literature, namely (i) the application of pulse-width modulation techniques to on-off pneumatic valves and (ii) the introduction of a high speed rotary air valve, are merged in the design of a novel rotary flow control valve with built-in pulse-width modulation. Valve feasibility is demonstrated experimentally through the closed-loop position control of a pneumatic actuator. Static and dynamic performance characteristics as predicted by a detailed nonlinear lumped parameter model, compare favorably with measured data. Additionally, a simple linear time-invariant model, with a few empirical parameters, of the system is developed and validated through comparison with experiment and the nonlinear model. Then, several system design improvements based on this simple linear model are implemented and evaluated with the detailed nonlinear model.

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Ning, Feng, Yingli Chang, and Jingze Wang. "Variable Stiffness Structures Utilizing Pneumatic Artificial Muscles." MATEC Web of Conferences 256 (2019): 01005. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201925601005.

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Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) can offer excellent force-to-weight ratios and act as shape-changing actuator under injecting the actuation fluid into their bladders. PAMs could be easily utilized for morphing structures due to their millimeter-scale diameter. The pressurized PAM can serve not only as artificial muscle actuator which obtains contraction deformation capability but also as a spring system with variable stiffness. In this study, the stiffness behaviors of pressurized PAMs and a variable stiffness structure are investigated. By taking advantage of the designed PAMs which was conducted by the non- linear quasi-static model, significant changes in the spring stiffness can be achieved by air pressure control. A case study is presented to explore the potential behavior of a structure with circular permutation PAMs. The structure used in this case consists of sixteen PAMs with circular homogeneous distribution and a circular supporter with sixteen slide way runners. The stiffness of presented structure can vary flexibly in wide range through controlling the air pressure levels and slide deformation respectively.

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Varghese, Jobin, Akhil V.M., Rajendrakumar P.K., and Sivanandan K.S. "A rotary pneumatic actuator for the actuation of the exoskeleton knee joint." Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Letters 7, no. 4 (July 2017): 222–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.taml.2017.08.002.

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Zhou, Xin, Gopi Chandran Ravichandran, Peng Zhang, Yang Yang, and Yong Zeng. "A microfluidic alternating-pull–push active digitization method for sample-loss-free digital PCR." Lab on a Chip 19, no. 24 (2019): 4104–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c9lc00932a.

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Negrea, Doina, Andrea Deaconescu, and Tudor Deaconescu. "Actuation by Pneumatic Muscles of a Parallel Asymmetric Gripper System." Applied Mechanics and Materials 548-549 (April 2014): 943–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.548-549.943.

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Deployment of pneumatic muscles for the actuation of gripper systems is a solution with numerous benefits, related mostly to the developed force, structural rigidity, compliance and dexterity. The paper discusses a gripper variant with parallel jaws, actuated by a pneumatic muscle. The structure of the mechanism is presented, and the transmission functions of speeds and forces are determined. Due to its construction, the gripper system can be used for precision applications, similar to natural systems.

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Hwang, Changmo, Kyung Won Nam, Jung Joo Lee, Gi Seog Jeong, Chi Beom Ahn, Kyung Hyun Kim, Beom Soo Kim, Ho Sung Son, Young Fu Fang, and Kyung Sun. "COMPACT BIVENTRICULAR ASSIST DEVICE WITH PNEUMATIC ACTUATION MECHANISM." ASAIO Journal 52, no. 2 (March 2006): 37A. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00002480-200603000-00165.

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42

Kalita, Bhaben, Alexander Leonessa, and Santosha K. Dwivedy. "A Review on the Development of Pneumatic Artificial Muscle Actuators: Force Model and Application." Actuators 11, no. 10 (October 9, 2022): 288. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/act11100288.

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Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) are soft and flexible linear pneumatic actuators which produce human muscle like actuation. Due to these properties, the muscle actuators have an adaptable compliance for various robotic platforms as well as medical applications. While a variety of possible actuation schemes are present, there is still a need for the development of a soft actuator that is very light-weight, compact, and flexible with high power-to-weight ratio. To achieve this, the development of the PAM actuators has become an interesting topic for many researchers. In this review, the development of the different kinds of PAM available to date are presented along with manufacturing process and the operating principle. The various force models for artificial muscle presented in the literature are broadly reviewed with the constraints. Furthermore, the applications of PAM are included and classified based on the fields of biorobotics, medicine, and industry, along with advanced medical instrumentation. Finally, the needful improvements in terms of the dynamics of the muscle are discussed for the precise control of the PAMs as per the requirements for the applications. This review will be helpful for researchers working in the field of robotics and for designers to develop new type of artificial muscle depending on the applications.

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Woods, Benjamin KS, Michael F. Gentry, Curt S. Kothera, and Norman M. Wereley. "Fatigue life testing of swaged pneumatic artificial muscles as actuators for aerospace applications." Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 23, no. 3 (February 2012): 327–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1045389x11433495.

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Pneumatic artificial muscles are a class of pneumatically driven actuators that are remarkable for their simplicity, lightweight, and excellent performance. These actuators are essentially a tubular bladder surrounded by a braided sleeve and sealed at both ends. Pressurization of the actuators generates contraction and tensile forces. Pneumatic artificial muscles have traditionally been used for robotics applications, but there has been recent interest in adapting them to a variety of aerospace actuation applications where their large stroke and force, which are realized at minimal weight penalty, create potential performance improvements over traditional technologies. However, an impediment to wide-spread acceptance of pneumatic artificial muscles is the relatively short fatigue lives of the actuators reported in the literature (typically, less than 18,000 actuation cycles before damage occurs). The purpose of this study is to develop a new construction method designed to greatly increase the number of fatigue cycles before damage occurs. The fabrication methodology employs a swaging process to provide smooth and distributed clamping of the bladder and braided sleeve components onto the end fittings. This approach minimizes stress concentrations and provides high mechanical strength, which can be experimentally validated via testing for the ultimate tensile failure load. Finite element analysis was used to refine the design of the swaged end fittings before extensive fatigue testing began. Long-term fatigue testing of the actuators under realistic operating conditions showed a substantial increase in actuator life, from a maximum of less than 18,000 cycles in previous research studies to more than 120,000,000 cycles in this study.

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Jiang, Dan, Ping Yang, and Ren Tian Ma. "3-D Stress Analysis of Pneumatic Pen Cylinder with Preload in Mounting Nut." Advanced Materials Research 335-336 (September 2011): 629–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.335-336.629.

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As a necessary component in pneumatic muscle, minimum switch and minimum mechanical hand, pen cylinder used as prime actuator possesses the characteristics of high speed actuation possible, easy installation, improved wear resistance and so on. The construction and working principle of the pen cylinder are introduced. Using 3-D stress field finite element analysis (FEA) method, the stress field distribution of pen cylinder with preload in mounting nut is analyzed. Simulation results are presented. The stress characteristics are compared between different preload in mounting nut and thickness of mounting bracket.

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Potnik, Valentina, Gabriele Frediani, and Federico Carpi. "How to Easily Make Self-Sensing Pneumatic Inverse Artificial Muscles." Biomimetics 9, no. 3 (March 15, 2024): 177. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics9030177.

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Wearable mechatronics for powered orthoses, exoskeletons and prostheses require improved soft actuation systems acting as ‘artificial muscles’ that are capable of large strains, high stresses, fast response and self-sensing and that show electrically safe operation, low specific weight and large compliance. Among the diversity of soft actuation technologies under investigation, pneumatic devices have been the focus, during the last couple of decades, of renewed interest as an intrinsically soft artificial muscle technology, due to technological advances stimulated by applications in soft robotics. As of today, quite a few solutions are available to endow a pneumatic soft device with linear actuation and self-sensing ability, while also easily achieving these features with off-the-shelf materials and low-cost fabrication processes. Here, we describe a simple process to make self-sensing pneumatic actuators, which may be used as ‘inverse artificial muscles’, as, upon pressurisation, they elongate instead of contracting. They are made of an elastomeric tube surrounded by a plastic coil, which constrains radial expansions. As a novelty relative to the state of the art, the self-sensing ability was obtained with a piezoresistive stretch sensor shaped as a conductive elastomeric body along the tube’s central axis. Moreover, we detail, also by means of video clips, a step-by-step manufacturing process, which uses off-the-shelf materials and simple procedures, so as to facilitate reproducibility.

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Clime, Liviu, Lidija Malic, Jamal Daoud, Luke Lukic, Matthias Geissler, and Teodor Veres. "Buoyancy-driven step emulsification on pneumatic centrifugal microfluidic platforms." Lab on a Chip 20, no. 17 (2020): 3091–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d0lc00333f.

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We present here a new method for controlling the droplet size in step emulsification processes on a centrifugal microfluidic platform, which, in addition to the centrifugal force, uses pneumatic actuation for fluid displacement.

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47

Du, Hongwang, Wei Liu, Xin Bian, and Wei Xiong. "Energy-Saving for Industrial Pneumatic Actuation Systems by Exhausted Air Reuse Based on a Constant Pressure Elastic Accumulator." Sustainability 14, no. 6 (March 17, 2022): 3535. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su14063535.

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Exhausted air reuse is one of the most important energy-saving methods for pneumatic actuation systems. However, traditional exhausted air storage tanks have the disadvantages of unstable pressure and low energy density. To solve these problems, this paper presents an energy-saving method by exhausted air reuse for industrial pneumatic actuation systems based on a constant pressure elastic accumulator. Employing the hyperelastic mechanical properties of rubber, a constant pressure energy storage accumulator is designed and applied to a pneumatic circuit for exhausted air recovery and energy saving. In the circuit, the accumulator recovers exhausted air from a primary cylinder and supplies it to another secondary cylinder. Then the secondary cylinder no longer needs air supply from the air compressor to achieve the purpose of energy saving. The energy-saving mathematical model of the circuit is established using air consumption, and the system operation test bed is built to verify the energy-saving efficiency. Results show that the maximum energy-saving efficiency of the system is 54.1% under given working conditions, and the stability of the cylinder can be improved.

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Sénac, Thibault, Arnaud Lelevé, Richard Moreau, Cyril Novales, Laurence Nouaille, Minh Tu Pham, and Pierre Vieyres. "A Review of Pneumatic Actuators Used for the Design of Medical Simulators and Medical Tools." Multimodal Technologies and Interaction 3, no. 3 (July 2, 2019): 47. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mti3030047.

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Simulators have been traditionally used for centuries during medical gestures training. Nowadays, mechatronic technologies have opened the way to more evolved solutions enabling objective assessment and dedicated pedagogic scenarios. Trainees can now practice in virtual environments representing various kind of patient and body parts including physio-pathologies issues. Gestures, to be mastered, vary according to each medical specialty (e.g., ultrasound probe orientations, or forceps installation during assisted delivery). Hence, medical students need kinesthetic feedback in order to significantly improve their learning capabilities. Gesture simulators require haptic devices with variable stiffness actuators. Existing solutions do not always fit the requirements because of their significant size. Contrary to electric actuators, pneumatic technology is low-cost, available off-the-shelf and offers a better mass–power ratio. However, it presents two main drawbacks: nonlinear dynamics and need for a compressed air supply. During the last decade, we have developed several haptic solutions based on pneumatic actuation (e.g., birth simulator, epidural needle insertion simulator) and, recently, in a joint venture with Prisme laboratory, a pneumatic probe master device for remote ultrasonography. This paper recalls literature scientific approaches on pneumatic actuation developed in the medical context and illustrated with the aforementioned applications to highlight the benefits.

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Elsamanty, Mahmoud, Mohamed A. Hassaan, Mostafa Orban, Kai Guo, Hongbo Yang, Saber Abdrabbo, and Mohamed Selmy. "Soft Pneumatic Muscles: Revolutionizing Human Assistive Devices with Geometric Design and Intelligent Control." Micromachines 14, no. 7 (July 16, 2023): 1431. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi14071431.

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Soft robotics, a recent advancement in robotics systems, distinguishes itself by utilizing soft and flexible materials like silicon rubber, prioritizing safety during human interaction, and excelling in handling complex or delicate objects. Soft pneumatic actuators, a prevalent type of soft robot, are the focus of this paper. A new geometrical parameter for soft artificial pneumatic muscles is introduced, enabling the prediction of actuation behavior using analytical models based on specific design parameters. The study investigated the impact of the chamber pitch parameter and actuation conditions on the deformation direction and internal stress of three tested soft pneumatic muscle (SPM) models. Simulation involved the modeling of hyperelastic materials using finite element analysis. Additionally, an artificial neural network (ANN) was employed to predict pressure values in three chambers at desired Cartesian positions. The trained ANN model demonstrated exceptional performance. It achieved high accuracy with training, validation, and testing residuals of 99.58%, 99.89%, and 99.79%, respectively. During the validation simulations and neural network results, the maximum errors in the x, y, and z coordinates were found to be 9.3%, 7.83%, and 8.8%, respectively. These results highlight the successful performance and efficacy of the trained ANN model in accurately predicting pressure values for the desired positions in the soft pneumatic muscles.

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SUGIYAMA, Taku, Kyo KUTSUZAWA, Dai OWAKI, and Mitsuhiro HAYASHIBE. "Characteristic Evaluation of Bending-Type Fluidic Elastomer Actuator for Pneumatic/Hydraulic Dual-Actuation." Proceedings of JSME annual Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (Robomec) 2022 (2022): 2P1—K05. http://dx.doi.org/10.1299/jsmermd.2022.2p1-k05.

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Journal articles on the topic 'Pneumatic actuation'

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