Estimation for Characteristic of Short-Length McKibben Type Artificial Rubber Muscle Considering Initial Shape

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to estimate force characteristic of short-length McKibben type artificial rubber muscle using artificial muscle model. In previous works, we proposed mathematical model of McKibben type artificial rubber muscle considered the hysteresis characteristics and estimated the force characteristic of long-length McKibben type artificial rubber muscle based on proposed model. However, the force characteristics of short-length McKibben type artificial rubber muscle can not be estimated because it can not be represented as the virtual pantograph in the previous model. Thus, the virtual pantograph structure is augmented based on the ratio of diameter to length for applying to artificial muscles of various lengths. In this paper, the augmented model was compared with the force characteristics of actual McKibben type artificial rubber muscles of various lengths. From the results, it was confirmed that proposed model can estimate the force characteristics of short-length McKibben type artificial rubber muscle.