Abstract
Pneumatic robots have structural softness which is an important element when robots work in living environments of humans. In addition, pneumatics is one of the approaches to realize jumping, running, walking and so on, which are performed by animals and humans. The self-contained pneumatic robot we previously developed has a commercial super-small air compressor, which generates insufficient pressure for dynamic motions such as jumping. To solve this problem we designed and developed super-small high-pressure air compressors. As an additional method of improving the maximum pressure, we tested to increase the intake pressure by using the compressed air stored with a regenerative air pressure system. We verified the efficacy of supercharging. We also developed a self-contained pneumatic robot BIRDLEG with the new super-small high-pressure compressor and the regenerative air pressure system. We verified the validity of the design concept for self-contained pneumatic robots by realization of jumping on BIRDLEG without any external air pressure source.
