This paper presents a new six-degree-of-freedom pneumatic fine-motion device that can be used as a robot wrist, a teleoperation master, or in other finemotion applications requiring high position resolution and force control. The device uses six pairs of externally pressurized mechanical bellows as a pneumatic suspension without actuator friction. Forces and torques are controlled by servoing differential pressure across each pair of bellows using novel high-flow flapper valves. Aspects of design and control are presented. Experimental results show that the valves employed have no hysteresis and have pow exceeding that of any single stage pneumatic valve currently available on the market, while the pneumatic-suspension device shows promise as a force-reflecting teleoperation master.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.