Experimental Investigation on the Actuating Characteristics of Pneumatically Actuated Artificial Muscle Joints

In view of the pliability of pneumatic artificial muscle(PAM), a new type of test bench is designed. In this test bench, a cylinder acts as the load of the PAM, and parameters of the PAM are automatically measured. A simple and practical static characteristics model is obtained by fitting these experimental data. A joint actuated by a pair of PAMs is studied by static experiments and step experiments. Experiments show the joint has high linearity yet having low response and a holding ring.