Operating Characteristics of Antagonistic Actuator with Pneumatic Artificial Muscles

Nonconventional actuators based on the pneumatic artificial muscles can be used in manipulators mainly for their lower energy consumption and higher performance at lower weight. In the paper there are compared the dynamic operating characteristics of the antagonistic actuator with the pneumatic artificial muscles obtained by simulation of the different muscle models in Matlab / Simulink environment with the real measured data on the experimental actuator. The results of these simulations and measurements confirmed highly nonlinear operating characteristics of such actuator and also right approach to the design of the actuator model using different muscle models.