Abstract
The purpose of this study is to develop a portable air supply system for a wearable device driven with a pneumatic actuator. It is effective for downsizing a whole system to introduce a small size air compressor. On the other hand, output pressure and flow rate are also decreased as a whole system is downsized because of a small motor and a decrease in volume of air chamber. The air supply system using the variable volume tank is developed in this study in order to combine with a small size compressor. The variable volume tank composed of rubbers can store pneumatic energy by converting it to elastic energy. The variable volume tank can decrease a pressure drop in tank when supplying compressed air to an actuator. Therefore, output pressure from a compressor when charging compressed air to tank can decrease by using this tank. In addition, pneumatic energy in an actuator is retrieved by this tank as the retrieval tank in re-compression system. Energy consumption can be decreased by retrieving pneumatic energy. In this paper, the composition and structure of the developed system are described, and then energy consumption is discussed to verify the developed system.
