Modelling of the 4-axis kinematic manipulator airarm driven by pneumatic muscle actuators

This paper presents the dynamic modelling of a 4-axis manipulator arm driven by pneumatic muscle actuators. This manipulator, named AirArm, was developed within a research project of Festo's Bio Learning Network 2008. The modelling of the pneumatic and mechanical components of the system is required for the design of the control structure and the determination of the control parameters as well as for the analysis of the system performance. The first part of the paper describes a model, which considers the important effects of the pneumatic plant and the highly nonlinear behavior of the pneumatic muscle. In this context, a readily invertible mathematical model that describes the force-pressure relationship of the muscle will be presented. A description of the kinematic system of the manipulator using Lagrangian mechanics will be presented in the second part of the paper.