DEVELOPMENT OF MANIPULATORS AND A GRIPPER USING THE SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY ARTIFICIAL MUSCLE

Abstract

The new actuator, the artificial muscle developed under the idea of biomimetic, have been composed of series/parallel connected artificial sarcomeres, which are made of the Ti-Ni shape memory alloy. It has some advantages of longer stroke, noiseless, and better controllability than the ordinary SMA actuator. This paper describes about some applications of the SMA artificial muscle for manipulators. Firstly, a single joint manipulator with push/pull antagonistic mechanism was developed. Secondly, a double joint manipulator was also developed. Both the manipulators showed good performances. Furthermore, a gripper with SMA artificial muscle was developed.