Abstract
In recent years, a robot's activity is spreading in the care spot or a home life. The robot that interact with humans not only requires high output but it should also be safe and flexible. To satisfy these requirements, we adopt a pneumatic artificial muscle as an actuator of robot manipulator. The pneumatic artificial muscle is lightweight and high power output. However, a McKibben-type artificial muscle commonly used for this purpose is problematic; therefore, we develop a straight-fiber-type artificial muscle that surpasses the McKibben type in regards to the output. We also develop two types of two degrees of freedom wrist joints driven by pneumatic artificial muscle. Moreover, we propose a control system for this manipulator about joint angle and stiffness.
