Low Cost Intelligent Arm Actuator Using Pneumatic Artificial Muscle with Biofeedback Control

Hard Exoskeletons and arm actuators have already been designed and available in industry but they are expensive, heavy and cumbersome so to reduce these drawbacks a low cost lightweight intelligent arm actuator has been designed, constructed and evaluated. It consists of a pneumatic artificial muscle, constructed using a football bladder and covered by parachute material to limit its expansion. Pneumatic artificial muscle is under the control of micro controller that keep monitoring and controlling the air pressure of artificial muscle using biofeedback amplifier provided to micro controller from cuff bladder which detects the muscle tension.