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Actuators
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Pneumatic Muscle Actuators
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Pneumatic Muscle Actuators

A special issue of Actuators (ISSN 2076-0825).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 February 2022) | Viewed by 7912

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Francesco Durante

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Guest Editor
Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and Economics, University of L’Aquila, Via G. Gronchi 18, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Interests: bioengineering; service robotics; man-amplifying exoskeletons; pneumatic muscle actuators; shape memory alloy actuators; microsystems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Pierluigi Beomonte Zobel

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Guest Editor
Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and Economy (DIIIE), University of L’Aquila, Piazzale Ernesto Pontieri 1, Monteluco di Roio, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Interests: industrial robots; rehabilitation robots; collaborative robotics; wearable robotics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Michele Gabrio Antonelli

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Guest Editor
Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and Economics, University of L’Aquila, Via G. Gronchi 18, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Interests: mechatronics; soft and pneumatic muscle actuators; service robotics; agricultural robotics; bioengineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Pneumatic muscle actuators were initially conceived only for bioengineering applications. Over time, several new types have also been proposed for industrial applications, keeping some interesting characteristics unchanged: high strength/mass ratio, possibility of realization with easily available materials, ease of realization, low cost, ease of introduction into mechanical devices thanks to high tolerances assembly, respect for the environment and compliance, very useful for devices that must interact with humans.

The behavior of pneumatic muscles is strongly nonlinear due to large deformations and nonlinear characteristics of the materials they are made of. For this reason, it is difficult to predict their behavior, and many of the efforts of researchers in the past have been directed toward modeling in order to obtain tools for the sizing, prediction of functioning, life duration, and control of pneumatic muscles.

The recent development of soft actuators has led to a renewed interest of researchers in pneumatic muscles.

This Special Issue aims to collect all the most innovative contributions on the theme of pneumatic muscles and soft actuators on topics including, but not limited to, new types of actuators, new realization technologies, new realization materials, new applications, and new models for sizing, control, for the forecast of operation, and for fatigue life duration.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Machines.

Dr. Francesco Durante
Dr. Pierluigi Beomonte Zobel
Dr. Michele Gabrio Antonelli
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Actuators is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • pneumatic muscles
  • soft actuators
  • rubber actuators 
  • compliance 
  • pneumatic control 
  • nonlinear behavior 
  • modeling

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

26 pages, 15979 KiB  
Article
An Inverse Dynamics-Based Control Approach for Compliant Control of Pneumatic Artificial Muscles
by Cabbar Veysel Baysal
Actuators 2022, 11(4), 111; https://doi.org/10.3390/act11040111 - 16 Apr 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2484
Abstract
Rehabilitation is an area of robotics in which human–robot collaboration occurs, requiring adaptation and compliance. Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM) are soft actuators that have built-in compliance making them usable for rehabilitation robots. Conversely, compliance arises from nonlinear characteristics and generates obstructions in modeling [...] Read more.
Rehabilitation is an area of robotics in which human–robot collaboration occurs, requiring adaptation and compliance. Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM) are soft actuators that have built-in compliance making them usable for rehabilitation robots. Conversely, compliance arises from nonlinear characteristics and generates obstructions in modeling and controlling actions. It is a critical issue limiting the use of PAM. In this work, multi-input single-output (MISO) inverse modeling and inverse dynamics model learning approaches are combined to obtain a novel nonlinear adaptive control scheme for single PAM-actuated 1-DoF rehabilitation devices, for instance, continuous passive motion (CPM) devices. The objective of the proposed system is to bring an alternative solution to the compliant operation of PAM while performing exercise trajectories, to satisfy requirements such as larger range of motion (ROM) and adaptability to external load impedance variations. The control system combines the operation of a nonlinear autoregressive network with exogenous inputs (NARX)-based inverse dynamics estimator used as a global range controller and cascade PIDs for local position and pressure loops. Implementation results demonstrated the efficacy of the introduced method in terms of compliant operation for dynamic external load variations as well as a stable operation in case of impulsive disturbances. To summarize, a simple but efficient method is illustrated to facilitate the common use of PAM. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pneumatic Muscle Actuators)
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13 pages, 2684 KiB  
Article
A Procedure for the Fatigue Life Prediction of Straight Fibers Pneumatic Muscles
by Francesco Durante, Michele Gabrio Antonelli, Pierluigi Beomonte Zobel and Terenziano Raparelli
Actuators 2021, 10(11), 300; https://doi.org/10.3390/act10110300 - 11 Nov 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1759
Abstract
Different from the McKibben pneumatic muscle actuator, the straight fibers one is made of an elastomeric tube closed at the two ends by two heads that ensure a mechanical and pneumatic seal. High stiffness threads are placed longitudinally into the wall of the [...] Read more.
Different from the McKibben pneumatic muscle actuator, the straight fibers one is made of an elastomeric tube closed at the two ends by two heads that ensure a mechanical and pneumatic seal. High stiffness threads are placed longitudinally into the wall of the tube while external rings are placed at some sections of it to limit the radial expansion of the tube. The inner pressure in the tube causes shortening of the actuator. The working mode of the muscle actuator requires a series of critical repeated contractions and extensions that cause it to rupture. The fatigue life duration of a pneumatic muscle is often lower than traditional pneumatic actuators. The paper presents a procedure for the fatigue life prediction of a straight-fibers muscle based on experimental tests directly carried out with the muscles instead of with specimens of the silicone rubber material which the muscle is made of. The proposed procedure was experimentally validated. Although the procedure is based on fatigue life duration data for silicone rubber, it can be extended to all straight-fibers muscles once the fatigue life duration data of any material considered for the muscles is known. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pneumatic Muscle Actuators)
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17 pages, 6630 KiB  
Article
Numerical and Experimental Study of a Flexible Trailing Edge Driving by Pneumatic Muscle Actuators
by Shiwei Zhao, Daochun Li, Jin Zhou and Enlai Sha
Actuators 2021, 10(7), 142; https://doi.org/10.3390/act10070142 - 24 Jun 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2422
Abstract
A static aeroelastic analysis of the flexible trailing edge is conducted to calculate the deformed shape, aerodynamic coefficients and corresponding driving pressure. A physical flexible trailing edge model is manufactured using a honeycomb structure, which is measured based on binocular vision. The quadratic [...] Read more.
A static aeroelastic analysis of the flexible trailing edge is conducted to calculate the deformed shape, aerodynamic coefficients and corresponding driving pressure. A physical flexible trailing edge model is manufactured using a honeycomb structure, which is measured based on binocular vision. The quadratic response surface method is adopted to establish the pneumatic artificial muscle actuator model. The wire-pulley transmission model is built to identify the existence of equivalent forces and produce the equivalent forces as the substitute of actuation force. A finite element model of the flexible trailing edge is established, which is validated by the test data. A nonlinear relationship is found between the driving pressure and deflection angle. The pressure needed to bear the structural stiffness is found to be much larger than that of the aerodynamic load. With the increase in pressure, the magnitude of the lift coefficient increases less. However, the magnitude of the drag coefficient increases more with the increase in pressure under 0.2 MPa. When the driving pressure exceeds 0.2 MPa, the relationship between them is nearly linear. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pneumatic Muscle Actuators)
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