A Seven-degrees-of-freedom Robot-arm Driven by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles for Humanoid Robots

Bertrand Tondu (1) , Serge Ippolito (1) , Jérémie Guiochet (2) , Alain Daidié (3)

1 LESIA-INSA - Laboratoire d'Étude des Systèmes Informatiques et Automatiques
2 LAAS-TSF - Équipe Tolérance aux fautes et Sûreté de Fonctionnement informatique
3 LGMT - Laboratoire de Génie Mécanique de Toulouse

Braided pneumatic artificial muscles, and in particular the better known type with a double helical braid usually called the McKibben muscle, seem to be at present the best means for motorizing robot-arms with artificial muscles. Their ability to develop high maximum force associated with lightness and a compact cylindrical shape, as well as their analogical behavior with natural skeletal muscle were very well emphasized in the 1980s by the development of the Bridge-stone " soft robot " actuated by " rubbertuators ". Recent publications have presented ways for modeling McKibben artificial muscle as well as controlling its highly non-linear dynamic behavior. However , fewer studies have concentrated on analyzing the integration of artificial muscles with robot-arm architectures since the first Bridge-stone prototypes were designed. In this paper we present the design of a 7R anthropomorphic robot-arm entirely actuated by antagonistic McKibben artificial muscle pairs. The validation of the robot-arm architecture was performed in a teleoperation mode.

Mots clés: artificial muscle; anthropomorphic robot-arm; McKibben muscle

Domaines: Automatique / Robotique

Bertrand Tondu, Serge Ippolito, Jérémie Guiochet, Alain Daidié. A Seven-degrees-of-freedom Robot-arm Driven by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles for Humanoid Robots. The International Journal of Robotics Research, 2005, 24 (4), p.257-274. ⟨10.1177/0278364905052437⟩. ⟨hal-01292939⟩