Page 62 - Robots Androids and Animatrons : 12 Incredible Projects You Can Build

Movement and drive 4

systems

IN THIS CHAPTER WE WILL LOOK AT A FEW MOVEMENT AND
drive components that may be used in robots. All the components
discussed in this chapter either have sample circuits contained in
this chapter or are used in robots elsewhere in this book. Here is a
list of the components we will work with: air muscles, nitinol wire, 41
stepper motors, geared direct current (DC) motors, servo motors,
and solenoids.

Air muscles

An air muscle is a simple pneumatic device developed in the
1950s by J. L. McKibben. Like biological muscles, air muscles con-
tract when activated. An interesting fact about air muscles is that
they provide a reasonable working copy of biological muscles, so
much so that researchers can use air muscles attached to a skele-
ton at primary biological muscle locations to study biomechanics
and low-level neural properties of biological muscles. In published
papers, air muscles are also referred to as McKibben air muscles,
McKibben pneumatic artificial muscles, and Rubbertuator. I will
refer to them simply as air muscles.

Applications

Air muscles have applications in robotics, biomechanics, artificial
limb replacement, and industry. The principal reasons why exper-
imenters and hobbyists will like air muscles are their ease of use
(as compared to standard pneumatic cylinders) and their simple

Team LRN Movement and drive systems

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