Development and control of a micro artificial muscle cell using electro-conjugate fluid

Abstract As a man–machine interaction increases its importance in the robotic and mechatronic fields, a soft robot, which is inspired from natural systems, becomes one of the most important research trends. There are several research topics related to soft robots such as soft structures or artificial skins, compliance control, soft actuators or artificial muscles, and so on. For the natural muscle potentially has great flexibility, the authors believe that the artificial muscle actuator must be a promising technology for soft robots. Hence in this study, we develop a new type of micro artificial muscle cell, which is an element of an integrated artificial muscle, using electro-conjugate fluid (ECF) and measure its driving performances. In addition, position control characteristics are also clarified by experiments. Experimental results show the micro artificial muscle cell using electro-conjugate fluid has a quite good control performance.

[1]  Daisuke Sasaki,et al.  Development of Pneumatic Soft Robot Hand for Human Friendly Robot , 2003, J. Robotics Mechatronics.

[2]  Thomas Wallmersperger,et al.  Coupled chemo-electro-mechanical formulation for ionic polymer gels––numerical and experimental investigations , 2004 .

[3]  Shinichi Yokota,et al.  A Micro Motor Using Electro-Conjugate Fluids (ECFs). [Proposition of Stator Electrode (SE)-Type Micro ECF Motors]. , 2000 .

[4]  Masayuki Inaba,et al.  Inverse kinematics of gel robots made of electro-active polymer gel , 2002, Proceedings 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.02CH37292).

[5]  J. Seyed-Yagoobi,et al.  Theoretical/numerical study of electrohydrodynamic pumping through pure conduction phenomenon , 2001, Conference Record of the 2001 IEEE Industry Applications Conference. 36th IAS Annual Meeting (Cat. No.01CH37248).

[6]  Shinichi Yokota,et al.  A Micro Motor Using Electroconjugate Fluids (ECFs) , 2001 .

[7]  Q. Pei,et al.  High-speed electrically actuated elastomers with strain greater than 100% , 2000, Science.

[8]  Seung-Bok Choi,et al.  Force tracking control of a flexible gripper featuring shape memory alloy actuators , 2001 .

[9]  Jae Wook Jeon,et al.  Soft actuator for robotic applications based on dielectric elastomer: quasi-static analysis , 2002, Proceedings 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.02CH37292).

[10]  H Meier,et al.  Numerical thermomechanical modelling of shape memory alloy wires , 2004 .

[11]  Kazuya Edamura,et al.  DIELECTRIC FLUID MOTORS , 1997 .

[12]  Pierre Cusin,et al.  Qualitative synthesis of deformable cylindrical actuators through constraint topology , 2000, Proceedings. 2000 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2000) (Cat. No.00CH37113).