Development and Safety Evaluation of an Antagonistic Joint driven by Hydraulic Muscles

Abstract

Power soft robot is considered as one of the potential collaborative robotics for heavy tasks because its compliant structure makes it suitable for human-robot interaction. This study aims to show the high level of safety of a 1-DOF manipulator joint driven by hydraulic muscles in an antagonistic arrangement and its potential to realize a multi-DOF power soft robot. When stored elastic energy is suddenly released, the intrinsic safety of hydraulic muscle actuators with incompressible liquid medium is experimentally proven to be higher than pneumatic muscle actuators. As a result, hydraulic muscle actuator is considered as a better candidate actuator for driving a power soft robot.