Control of Speed and Power in a Humanoid Robot Arm Using Pneumatic Actuators for Human-Robot Coexisting Environment

Abstract

A new type of humanoid robot arm which can coexist and be interactive with human beings are looked for. For the purpose of implementation of human smooth and fast movement to a pneumatic robot, the author used a humanoid robot arm with pneumatic agonist-antagonist actuators as endoskeletons which has control mechanism in the stiffness of each joint, and the controllability was experimentally discussed. Using Kitamori's method to experimentally decide the control gains and using I-PD controller, three joints of the humanoid robot arm were experimentally controlled. The damping control algorithm was also adopted to the wrist joint, to modify the speed in accordance with the power. The results showed that the controllability to step-wise input was less than one degree in error to follow the target angles, and the time constant was less than one second. The simultaneous input of command to three joints was brought about the overshoot of about ten percent increase in error. The humanoid robot arm can generate the calligraphic motions, moving quickly at some times but slowly at other times, or particularly softly on some occasions but stiffly on other occasions at high accuracy.