Development of a Revolving Drive Mechanism for a Robot Manipulator by using Pneumatic Bellows Actuators with Force Sensing Ability.

Abstract

In this paper we describe a new coupled tendon-driven joint mechanism that uses pneumatic bellows actuators. With regard to the mechanism, frames are attached to shafts of the bellows actuators and are connected to one link arm with wire. By making pressure difference between one side chamber of the actuator and the other, the joint revolves. From experimental results we disclose the static and dynamic characteristics of the proposed mechanism. Moreover, it is demonstrated that good positioning performance is realized by using a hierarchical control scheme which was proposed to control pneumatic drive systems. Since the bellows system has force-sensing ability, the proposed mechanism can estimate external forces without additional force sensors. In practice, we confirm the forcesensing ability through some experimental results.