Modeling and Enhancement of Mckibben Pneumatic Muscle Actuators

Mckibben pneumatic muscle actuators (PMA) have many advantages such as high power-mass ratio and low price, but their strong nonlinear characteristics makes modeling and controlling very hard, which limits their applications. This paper presents the modeling of PMA and methods to enhance their dynamic performances. Considering the incorporated models of fast-switching valves and PMAs, the entire system model is modified in some aspects and the dominant model parameters are determined through experimental results to estimate the dynamic characteristics precisely. Simulation and proper experiments reveal that the dynamic performance of PMA can be improved through filling the PMA with materials of high thermal conductivity. The slow time-varying disturbance caused by the temperature variation of inner gas can be reduced much, which lowers the difficulty of controlling