A compact valveless pressure control source for soft rehabilitation glove

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Biomedical Engineering
• Control Systems

Background:

• Soft pneumatic robots offer advantages for hand rehabilitation over rigid systems.
• Current applications are limited by the need for large, non-portable air compressors.
• Development of compact, portable pneumatic sources is crucial for wider adoption.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a compact, valveless pneumatic source for controlling soft actuator bending angles.
• To enable portable and efficient soft robotic systems for hand rehabilitation.

Main Methods:

• Integration of two series of commercially available microcompressors for enhanced pressure and flow.
• Implementation of an inner-loop controller for source output regulation.
• Utilization of an outer-loop controller for angular position trajectory tracking.

Main Results:

• The pneumatic source achieved an output pressure of up to 160 kPa.
• The controller successfully tracked sinusoidal trajectories up to 2 rad/sec.
• A maximum root-mean-square error of 0.066 rad was recorded during trajectory tracking.

Conclusions:

• The developed pneumatic source demonstrates satisfactory performance in terms of maximum ratings and tracking accuracy.
• Elimination of control valves led to relatively low average power consumption.
• The compact design facilitates the development of portable soft robotic rehabilitation systems.