engleski

Fluid power drives in robotic systems

Two main actuation technologies are used for stationary and mobile robotic systems. Electric actuators are commonly used to drive robots and manipulators, but tasks requiring highly dynamic actuation performance in terms of speed and torque cannot always provide satisfactory solutions unless they oversize them. The other drive technique used for actuating robots and manipulators is based on fluid power technologies, that is, hydraulic drives for higher power and pneumatic drives for less power requirements. This paper briefly reviews the history of robotic systems with fluid power drives, focusing on the development of several experimental robotic systems actuated by hydraulic and pneumatic drives, which have been designed as test models in the field of mobile robots, mechatronics, fluid power systems and feedback control education of mechanical engineering students. The paper first presents the design, practical realization and control of a prototype of an electro-hydraulic robotic manipulator suitable for heavyweight objects manipulation tasks in industrial environment. The robotic manipulator has three-degrees-of- freedom with a hydraulic gripper at the end of the mechanical structure. The robotic manipulator can be controlled using levers on the proportional hydraulic valve block, or using a joystick, whereby the desired operation is commanded to the valve block for generating a suitable flow to the actuators that will move the mechanical arm. Recently, the wireless control of the proportional valve group has been realized via Bluetooth connection, applying a low-cost microcontroller and self- made control interface. Then the paper presents the design and construction of a robotic manipulator with three-degrees-of-freedom actuated with pneumatic cylindrical drives and controlled by using a PLC device. The article subsequently describes the design, construction and control of a single-joint manipulator arm driven by a pair of pneumatic muscle actuators, which is actually a biologically inspired design of a technical system that enable some new features of the controlled systems. The final section of the article describes the design and construction of four legged walking robot actuated by pneumatic muscles. The robot is a fully autonomous system with wireless application platform and its motion in all directions can be controlled by using a cell phone.

fluid power technology, components and systems, control systems, fluids, maintenance and monitoring

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