抄録
A rod-less type flexible pneumatic cylinder is a novel soft actuator. In this paper, a sliding and bending mechanism composed of these flexible pneumatic cylinders is described. Due to its simple structure and flexibility, the tested mechanism can generate a natural flowing movement with multi-motion such as bending, expanding and contracting. A master-slave attitude control method for the mechanism is proposed and tested. An analytical model of the mechanism is also proposed for the attitude control. In addition, an inexpensive quasi-servo valve using on/off control valves and a tiny embedded controller are utilized in the attitude control system to improve the control performance. As a result, the usability of the proposed mechanism and the effectiveness of the attitude control method by using the analytical model and the quasi-servo valve are confirmed. This mechanism will be applied to a rehabilitation device for a human wrist as our future work.
