The actuator is an indispensable part in a robot. Recently, there has been increasing interest within the robotics research community in the area of methods of actuation of robotic manipulators.
A rubber pneumatic controlled actuator is a new actuator and its application for many fields is expected. The rubber actuator is very light with a high power to weight ratio. It takes advantage of inherent simplicity and compliance control characteristics of pneumatic controlled actuators and enables position control or force control, which is difficult to perform with such a current pneumatic actuator as the air cylider.
In this thesis, a control method for a two link robot arm with the rubber actuator is developed.
First, the survey of the present actuators for robot is taken and the rubber actuator's characteristics are shown. The study of modeling and the control of the rubber actuator drive system which has one revolute joint is described.
The structure of the servo control is made up of two sections. Position control is performed by PID feedback control. The air pressure is controlled by Servo Valve Unit driven by PWM and the control input is compensated by software operation.
The numerical simulation of this control method to two link robot arm is presented to verify the performance of the closed loop system.
The actual control of the real two link robot arm with rubber actuator is taken and its results are discussed.
