Modeling Hysteresis in Pleated Pneumatic Artificial Muscles

Abstract

Estimating the force exerted by a pneumatic muscle actuator by measuring its gauge pressure is challenging since hysteresis is almost always present. This paper investigates the hysteresis phenomenon in pleated pneumatic artificial muscles, which is found to be largely independent of gauge pressure. A Preisach based hysteresis model that can cope with the specific shape of the force-contraction characteristic of pneumatic muscles is proposed, and its results are presented.