In recent years, electronic control has become mainstream of pneumatic control systems. But pneumatic positioning systems have advantages such as explosion proof, operable even at power failure, simple structure, easier maintenance, and low price. Therefore, with fusion of mechanical feedback technology and latest technology, it is possible to realize an advanced system required for realize a safe and secure society, and it can be expected to be applied in a wide field in the future. In this study, we aim to develop advanced system incorporating pneumatic positioning systems with mechanical feedback, we propose a model of the pneumatic positioning systems with mechanical feedback, perform characteristic analysis using the model, and evaluate the effectiveness of the model by comparing with the experiment result. In this paper, step response experiments were carried out using three different sizes of cylinders, and the results of the step response experiment and the simulation were compared. As a result, except for high input pressure, the transient characteristics of both were in good agreement. Therefore, it proved that the proposed model is effective for analyzing the transient characteristics of the system incorporating pneumatic positioning systems with mechanical feedback. We also obtained the prospect that the characteristics analyzed using the proposed model can be used for developing new applications.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

In recent years, master-slave systems with pneumatic actuators, which are necessary to realize a safe and secure society, have attracted increasing attention and are currently being used in the medical and welfare fields. In addition, they are used in disaster-recovery support through application to remote-controlled robots. The master-slave system proposed in this study aims at improving safety and reliability by controlling a pneumatic actuator with mechanical feedback. A characteristic analysis is essential to improve the performance and expand the possibilities for incorporation into practical systems. The purpose of this study is to clarify the performance of a master-slave system comprising only mechanical components and consider possible applications. We have developed a pneumatic master-slave system that uses a one-axis stage and a precision pressure regulator as the master and a pneumatic positioning device as the slave and performed characteristic confirmation experiments. First, we modeled the pneumatic positioning device and compared it with the actual step response. Next, we made a prototype of the master-slave system and conducted characteristic confirmation experiments such as step response and response to repeated inputs. Our experimental results suggest that this system is suitable for applications that require relatively low speeds and positioning accuracies of several millimeters, such as nursing-care assisting systems, transportation-support systems at production sites, and robots with expanded human abilities.