Highly Flexible Pneumatic Actuators

Currently, the main limitation to the use of the Flexible Actuators (FA) are their complicated construction and high manufacturing costs. They arc also difficult to control, especially all printed FA. This paper describes a new type of FA. It is built with two springs left- and right-coil and one elastic tube mounted inside the springs. Such an actuator is very easy to design, as is the proper choice of each of its constituent components. Consequently, it is easy to create an actuator with required technical parameters. An actuator is made with springs, therefore it can be used as a push and pull actuator with only one inlet. This paper presents the basic tests and the mathematic model of the FA.