Modeling, Control, and Simulation of a 3-Degrees of Freedom Mechanism Actuated by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles for Upper Limb Prosthesis Application

Abstract

This work reports advances in enabling the use of pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM) as an alternative to electromechanical actuators in upper-limb prostheses to take advantage of their low weight, clean, renewable energy source, and force compliance, which is especially suitable for interactions between machines and humans. It describes the model, simulation, and control of a 3-degrees of freedom (DOF) mechanism representing a prosthetic finger using PAM actuators. Its main contribution is the combination and expansion of classic nonlinear models and control methods for robotic systems to allow PAM actuators in the intended application, especially regarding transient effects in the generation of PAM forces. The effectiveness of the proposed mechanism and its associated controller is verified through both numeric simulations and experimental results.