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. Experimental results show that the joint has good linearity but low response and holding ring.