Development of Flexible Robot Arm Using Rod-less Type Flexible Pneumatic Cylinders

The purpose of our study is to develop a flexible and lightweight actuator which can be safe enough to be attached to the human body. Then, we proposed new types of flexible pneumatic actuators that could be used even if the actuator was deformed by external forces. Moreover, we tested rod-less type flexible pneumatic cylinders that could be moved by push-pull action, and applied the tested flexible cylinders as a rotary actuator. In this paper, we develop the flexible pneumatic robot arm as an application of that flexible pneumatic cylinder. We investigate several kinds of motion of the tested robot arm by using the master-slave type control system. Moreover, we develop the flexible pneumatic cylinder with a built-in position sensor