Application of robots using pneumatic artificial rubber muscles for operating construction machines

In the restoration work from disasters, the remote control of construction machine is required to ensure the worker's safety. However, conventional remote-controlled construction machine is larger than ordinary ones and limited in types and numbers, so there is a problem that the transportation to the destructed sites takes time and is troublesome. Therefore, the development of the remote-control system using a robot, which can be easily installed in ordinary construction machine, is desired. We have been developing the pneumatic humanoid type robot arm, which can be installed in any models of construction machine, and realizing remote control of construction machine with the aim of easy installation and portability. In consideration of portability, the lightweight pneumatic artificial rubber muscle (PARM) was adopted as the actuator. In this research, we realized the remote control of the construction machine using the pneumatic robot that has 6 degree of freedom using the fiber knitted type PARM. We experimented in order to measure the static characteristic of the fiber knitted type PARM. Then we did experiment on the remote control of the construction machine. Experimental results show the developed system is availability in remote control of a construction machine.