Abstract
The purpose of this study is to develop a pneumatic artificial rubber muscle which has a high contractile rate in order to realize a required performance for a power assist device. The developed rubber muscle is constructed with two nylon bands and an expansion unit, which is put between nylon bands. The generated force from the expansion unit is converted to a contraction force by the nylon band. This rubber muscle can be realized the high contractile rate. In this paper, the structure and the characteristics of the developed rubber muscle are described, and then the applications of this muscle are discussed.
