The primary task of the electronic pressure (E/P) valves is to control the pressure continuously in different industrial automation processes. Their use in pneumatic drives allows regulating pressures in both cylinder chambers and so it is possible to achieve a direct force controlled actuator. Additionally to the force control, position control of the pneumatic actuator using E/P valves has be...

INTRODUCTION Externally pressurized gas-lubricated thrust bearings (aerostatic bearings) keep the bearing clearance constant under a constant supply pressure. We investigated how controlling the supply pressure with an electro-pneumatic servovalve can be used to dynamically adjust the bearing gap height. As a result of our investigation, we developed an electropneumatic servo-actuator “pneumati...

This paper presents a new type of muscle-like actuator, namely double-acting (DA) sleeve muscle actuator, which is suitable for the actuation of biologically-inspired and biomedical robotic systems, especially those serving human-assistance purposes (prostheses, orthoses, etc.). Developed based on the traditional pneumatic muscle actuator, the new DA sleeve muscle incorporates a unique insert a...

In Japanese society, an important problem of providing nursing care for the elderly has occurred. As a result, it is necessary to develop systems to aid in nursing care. The actuators required for such a system need to be flexible so as not to injure the body. The purpose of our study is to develop a flexible and lightweight actuator which can be safe enough to be attached to the human body. We...

This project aims to develop a novel large stroke asymmetric pneumatic servo system of a hardware-in-the-loop for path tracking control under variable loads based on the MATLAB Simulink real-time system. High pressure compressed air provided by the air compressor is utilized for the pneumatic proportional servo valve to drive the large stroke asymmetric rod-less pneumatic actuator. Due to the p...

This paper proposes a new approach to the design of a robot actuator with physically variable stiffness. The proposed approach leverages the dynamic characteristics inherent in a pneumatic actuator, which behaves in essence as a series elastic actuator. By replacing the four-way servovalve used to control a typical pneumatic actuator with a pair of three-way valves, the stiffness of the series ...

This paper presents a method for the impedance control of a pneumatic manipulator for peg-in-hole tasks without using a load cell. The control methodology presented contains a sliding mode force controller and an adaptive pressure summation relationship, which enforces the controllable natural stiffness of the pneumatic actuator. This is accomplished by utilizing two three-way proportional spoo...

Robotic exoskeleton is getting important to human in many aspects such as power assist, muscle training, regain motor function and rehabilitation. The research and development towards these functions are expected to be combined and integrated with the human intelligent and machine power, eventually becoming another generation of robot which will enhance the machine intelligent and human power. ...

This paper describes a multi-fingered haptic palpation method using stiffness feedback actuators for simulating tissue palpation procedures in traditional and robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery. Soft tissue stiffness is simulated by changing the stiffness property of the actuator during palpation. For the first time, granular jamming and pneumatic air actuation are combined together to r...