Self-excited Three-Passage Changing Valve using Magnets

Abstract

Soft robots need air supply tubes. However, if the supply tubes become long, Air pressure takes a long time to reach the end of the soft robot. therefore, operation frequency becomes slow down. In this paper, we propose a device that switches three flow passages self-excitedly by supplying continuous flow. This device helps to solve that problem by connecting the device to the end of the supply tube and switching flow passages just before the soft robot. The proposed device consists of two parts, one switches the effective flow passage by flat tubes and magnets, and the other shuts off other than the effective flow passage. The proposed device can be driven at low pressure because the switching motion is performed by a low-friction mechanism using magnets. The experimental result shows that the proposed device can change flow passages and switching frequency can be controlled by the flow rate.