Design and characterization of a pneumatic muscle actuator with novel end-fittings for medical assistive applications

Carvalho, Antonio Dylan Do Rosario; P, Navin Karanth; Desai, Vijay

doi:10.1016/j.sna.2021.112877

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The PMs were studied for decades from modelling, design, and control [43,44]. The PMs were compliant actuators mimicking human muscles, which were lightweight, had a high power-to-weight ratio, and were compliant [45]. However, there was an inevitable In addition, new driving solutions for joint assistance are also being explored and developed.…”

Section: Actuationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review on the Rehabilitation Exoskeletons for the Lower Limbs of the Elderly and the Disabled

Wang¹,

Zhang

Liu

et al. 2022

Electronics

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Research on the lower limb exoskeleton for rehabilitation have developed rapidly to meet the need of the aging population. The rehabilitation exoskeleton system is a wearable man–machine integrated mechanical device. In recent years, the vigorous development of exoskeletal technology has brought new ideas to the rehabilitation and medical treatment of patients with motion dysfunction, which is expected to help such people complete their daily physiological activities or even reshape their motion function. The rehabilitation exoskeletons conduct assistance based on detecting intention, control algorithm, and high-performance actuators. In this paper, we review rehabilitation exoskeletons from the aspects of the overall design, driving unit, intention perception, compliant control, and efficiency validation. We discussed the complexity and coupling of the man–machine integration system, and we hope to provide a guideline when designing a rehabilitation exoskeleton system for the lower limbs of elderly and disabled patients.

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Section: Actuationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review on the Rehabilitation Exoskeletons for the Lower Limbs of the Elderly and the Disabled

Wang¹,

Zhang

Liu

et al. 2022

Electronics

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“…Such seals, for each cable, are ensured by an O-ring ( 8) and an internally drilled set screw ( 9): the cable passes through the set screw whose assembly provides for pushing the O-ring that, in turn, closes the passage of air and applies the necessary contact pressure around the external surface of the cable. Other components of the MKM are the outer (10) and inner (11) tubes of the cylindrical capacitor, two sets of metallic screw-nut-eyelet (12) to connect the cables ( 13) and ( 14) to the foils of the capacitor, the hyper-elastic tube (15), and the braided gauze (16). The overall length of the muscle is equal to 380 m; the length of the active part is equal to 285 mm, while the external diameter of the MKM ends is equal to 36 mm.…”

Section: The Design Of the Mkm Based On The Cylindrical Capacitive Tr...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two voltage power supplies, ( 8) and ( 9), were adopted for the linear position and the pressure transducers, respectively. Two digital voltmeters were employed for measuring the linear position output voltage (10) and the pressure transducers (11).…”

Section: The Mkm Protoypementioning

confidence: 99%

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Design and Characterization of a Mckibben Pneumatic Muscle Prototype with an Embedded Capacitive Length Transducer

et al. 2022

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The McKibben muscle types are pneumatic actuators known to be intrinsically safe for their high power-to-weight ratio. For these reasons, they are suitable for robotic, biomechanical, and medical applications. In these application fields and, above all, in collaborative robotics, where safety must be ensured for human–robot interactions, the values of pressure, force, and length are necessary and must be continuously monitored and controlled. Force and pressure transducers are commercially available to be integrated into a McKibben muscle type. On the contrary, no commercial-length transducers can be adopted. This work presents a novel McKibben muscle prototype with an embedded capacitive-length transducer. The latter is a cylindrical capacitor made of a telescopic system composed of two tubes: one of its ends is connected to the muscle. A change in the length of the muscle causes a proportional change in the transducer capacitance. The paper reports in detail on the working principle of McKibben’s muscle, its fabrication, characterization, and validation of four prototype capacitive transducers. The results achieved from the experimental activities demonstrate that it is possible to control the variations of the muscle length relative to its elongation and compression for values less than 1 mm. This is the consequence of the ability to measure the transducer capacitance with a typical statistical relative indetermination better than 0.25%, which is a figure of merit for the reliability and mechanical and electrical stability of the proposed McKibben muscle prototype. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that the transducer capacitance as a function of the muscle length is linear, with maximum deviations from linearity equal to 2.44% and 5.22% during the muscle elongation and compression, respectively.

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“…The developed actuator was also tested in numerous applications to demonstrate its usefulness. To reduce the overall length and weight of the PAM while maintaining the optimum contraction, Carvalho et al [19] designed innovative end fittings, resulting in a shorter overall length of the muscle. Miniaturized artificial muscles (MPAMs) are the smaller version of PAMs, with the same advantages but a much smaller size and weight, which is intriguing for miniaturized applications, including wearable hand exoskeletons [20], cardiac compression devices, and manipulation tools for minimally invasive surgery [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design Optimization of a Miniaturized Pneumatic Artificial Muscle and Experimental Validation

Zabihollah,

Moezi,

Sedaghati

2023

Actuators

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Miniaturized pneumatic artificial muscles (MPAMs) are widely utilized in various applications due to their unique characteristics, such as a high power-to-weight ratio, flexibility, and compatibility with the human environment, as well as being compact enough to fit within small-scale mechanical systems. Maximizing the amount of force generated by these actuators while keeping their dimensions minimized can greatly affect their efficiency. In this study, a formal design optimization problem was formulated to identify optimal sizes of MPAMs while maximizing their blocked force as a novel approach to address the issue of low force outputs of these actuators. A force model for an MPAM including various correction terms was derived to better predict the response behavior of the actuator. The optimization results reveal that an MPAM with a bladder that has an outer diameter of 6 mm and a thickness of 0.7 mm, as well as a braid angle of 72 degrees, can produce up to almost 239 N of blocked force if the inlet pressure is increased to 600 kPa. An MPAM with optimal parameters was subsequently fabricated and experimentally tested to evaluate its quasi-static response behavior and to validate the theoretical optimization results. Experimental tests were conducted under a wide range of pressures (0–300 kPa) to evaluate the variation of the generated blocked force versus inlet pressure. The overall error between the simulation and the experimental blocked forces was found to be less than 10%. This study represents a significant contribution to the design optimization of MPAMs, and the resulting optimal design offers potential applications in various fields, from soft robots to medical devices.

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Design and characterization of a pneumatic muscle actuator with novel end-fittings for medical assistive applications

Cited by 14 publications

References 19 publications

A Review on the Rehabilitation Exoskeletons for the Lower Limbs of the Elderly and the Disabled

A Review on the Rehabilitation Exoskeletons for the Lower Limbs of the Elderly and the Disabled

Design and Characterization of a Mckibben Pneumatic Muscle Prototype with an Embedded Capacitive Length Transducer

Design Optimization of a Miniaturized Pneumatic Artificial Muscle and Experimental Validation

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