McKibben pneumatic artificial muscle

The actuator is a McKibben pneumatic artificial muscle that is driven by low air pressure (max. 200 kPa). Since the McKibben pneumatic artificial muscle has the flexibility, this robot hand contributes to safety when contacting with a human in a human environment, especially the medical field. The structure of the robot hand, inspired by the musculoskeletal structure that uses several muscles to make a joint move, is a redundant structure. Thus, the design of a controller is difficult. In this study, the biological controller inspired by a biological fluctuation is designed for a middle finger of the robot hand as a control target. 

Chou, C.P. Haimaford, B. Static and dynamic characteristics of McKibben pneumatic artificial muscles. Proc. 1994 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics Automation, San.Diego, CA, USA, vol. 1 (1994), pp. 281-286... 

Nickel, V.L., Perry, J., Garrett, A.L. Development of useful function in the severely paralyzed hand. Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery 45-A, 933-952 (1963) Chou, C., Hannaford, B. Measurement and modeling of McKibben pneumatic artificial muscle. IEEE Trans. Robot. Automat. 2, 90-102 (1996)... 

Pneumatic systems operate linearly like natural muscle pneumatic artificial muscles (McKibben artificial muscles) in particular are intrinsically compliant and can thus provide the give that natural muscle attains. Unfortunately, these systems require air compressors that are neither light nor small, and their response speed is limited by the ability to pump air into and out of the actuators. 

Another actuating principle is used by the artificial muscle approach. Popular in robotics are pneumatically operated muscles of the McKibben type (Zhang and Philen 2011). They consist of a tube-like shell of interwoven fibers. The basic operation principle is that a lateral expansion of this membrane yields an axial contraction caused by the woven structure (Bar-Cohen 2002). 

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