Pleated Pneumatic Artificial Muscles for Robotic Applications

This work describes the implementation of Pleated Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (PPAM) into innovative robotic applications. These actuators have a very high power to weight ratio and an inherent adaptable compliance. Two applications for which these characteristics give interesting surplus values are described. Nowadays legged robots are gaining more and more interest. But most of the robots use electrical drives making these machines heavy and power consuming. An actuator, such as the PPAM lowers the robot weight and the adaptable compliance of the muscles can be exploited to reduce energy consumption. In order to substantiate the benefits of the PPAM, a two-dimensional walking biped ”LUCY” has been built. For robot manipulators, which interact with humans to support them with some heavy-duty tasks, the compliance of the PPAM can assure a ”soft-touch”. Moreover it is possible to estimate exerted force and torque values by measuring the applied gauge pressures in the different artificial muscles. This provides an important tool to generate manipulator force and torque feedback without expensive and complex sensor devices.