Development of Wearable Pneumatic Pressure Control Valve Using On/off Valve Considered with Less Air Consumption

Abstract

Virtual reality has been flourishing as an interactive information technology. Recently, virtual reality systems that feed back to human senses have only been realized as visual and acoustic feedback. However, they are not enough to realize the force feedback system for hands, arms, legs and so on. The control system in such a force feedback system requires a soft actuator that needs to be flexible so as not to injure the body, and also required small sized and compact control devices such as pressure control valves that can adjust the generated forces of many actuators in order to apply it to the multi-degree motions of humans. The purpose of our study is to develop small sized pressure control valve considered with less air consumption. In this study, we proposed and tested a small sized pressure control system using on/off valves. We investigated the optimal operation of on/off valves in the control system to reduce exhaust air. We also developed multi port pressure control system using time shearing method based on the connected chamber volume.