1A1-C05 Enhancement of Initial Acceleration with Pre-tension of Pneumatic Muscle Connected to Electrically Driven Tendon(Mechanism and Control for Wire Actuation System)

Abstract

Conventional tendon driven robots have difficulties in achieving explosive movements because of antagonism which a muscle's contraction is blocked by the other one in the opposite side. This research is focusing on solving this problem and utilizing antagonism as a power amplifier with hybrid actuation method composed of electrically driven tendon and pneumatic artificial muscle which are connected serially. A pneumatic muscle tensed with motor-driven tendon can function as an energy storage which is so significant in achieving explosive movements such as jumping and kicking for a tendon driven legged robot. We introduce the method and illustrate its validity with lifting expriment by 1-axis test bench.