An experiments based modeling method for Pneumatic Artificial Muscle

The Pneumatic Artificial Muscle (PAM) provides many advantages over conventional actuators, especially pneumatic cylinders. It provides light weight, simple structure, high output force to weight ratio, low cost and so on. Despite of these advantages, there are also challenges in using a PAM actuator, such as the behavior of nonlinearity and high hysteresis. To get optimum design and usage, it is significant to find a good way to model the PAM. In this paper, an experiments based modeling method for pneumatic artificial muscle is proposed. This model is a polynomial model and the form of results is simple. At the same time, the parameters are easy to be obtained. Validation experiments are carried out in this paper. The experimental results show the feasibility and correctness of this method. Meanwhile, its simple structure is convenient for further design of PAM control system.