Angle tracking of a pneumatic muscle actuator mechanism under varying load conditions

In this paper, an active disturbance rejection control approach is proposed for a pneumatic muscle actuator mechanism to achieve angle tracking precisely under varying load conditions. The varying load conditions are treated as external disturbances which are estimated by a linear extended state observer. An active disturbance rejection controller is presented to compensate negative impacts induced by the varying loads. Moreover, stabilization of the closed-loop system are performed for the pneumatic muscle actuator mechanism. Finally, experimental results show the effectiveness of the developed technique in this paper.