Pleated pneumatic artificial muscles (PPAMs), which have recently been developed at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Department of Mechanical Engineering are brought forward as robotic actuators in this paper. Their distinguishing feature is their pleated design, as a result of which their contraction forces and maximum displacement are very high compared to other pneumatic artificial muscles. T...

Biorobotic research seeks to develop new robotic technologies modeled after the performance of human and animal neuromuscular systems. The development of one component of a biorobotic system, an artificial muscle and tendon, is reported here. The device is based on known static and dynamic properties of biological muscle and tendon that were extracted from the literature and used to mathematica...

In this paper, we report the fabrication of platinum nanowires using single wall carbon nanotubes as templates and their application as an electro-chemical actuator. Two regimes of actuation were seen in this actuator. In the “low” charge injection regime, quantum mechanical effects introduced by electrochemical double layer charge manipulation were the dominant actuation mechanism. Strain of a...

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 us...

Conductive hydrogels are promising material candidates in artificial skin and muscles, flexible implantable bioelectronics, tissue engineering.

Artificial Muscles: Actuators for Biorobotic Systems

This paper describes the objectives of this project, which are to design artificial limbs that are lightweight, compact and dexterous, that mimic human anatomy and maintain a high lifting capability. The key to satisfying these objectives is the use of Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) artificial muscles as actuators. A general methodology to find the placement of SMA wires to achieve desired ranges of ...