Modelling In Modelica Of A Pneumatic Muscle: Application To Model An Experimental Set-Up

Abstract

The characteristics of pneumatic artificial muscles -or McKibben muscles -make them very interesting for the development of robotic applications that feature low impedance in terms of their interaction with the environment, such as can be the case with orthoses or certain wearable robots. In order to research the applicability of these actuators in industrial applications, an experimental one-degree-of-freedom set-up based on pneumatic muscles manufactured by Festo has been built at Ikerlan. This paper presents the modelling of a pneumatic muscle in Modelica as a new component. After that, the paper describes the set-up constructed and shows the complete model in Dymola/Modelica, in addition to validation of the model with some experimental data.

A Survey on applications of Pneumatic Artificial Muscles

“…Utilizing the energy conservation principle, the PAM simple geometric force Fg can be calculated as the gauge relative pressure P' multiplied by the change in volume with respect to length (this model can also be found in [17]):…”

A survey on pneumatic muscle actuators modeling

“…Another simple and widely-used geometrical model of PMA is that of Tondu and Lopez [46]. Based on this approach and by: (1) utilizing similar geometric description of the muscle [45]; (2) assuming inextensibility of the mesh material; and (3) angle changes during the alteration of PMA's length, the following expression of the contraction force F generated by the muscle, as a function of the control pressure P and the contraction ratio , based on the theorem of virtual work , is deduced [46,48,49]:…”

Modelling and simulation of self-regulating pneumatic valves

“…A free-piston-engine modelled in Modelica is described in Pohl and Gräf [7], containing detailed submodels of several physical domains. In Pujana-Arrese et al [8], a Modelica-model of a pneumatic muscle is presented, combining fluid with mechanical modelling.…”