Pneumatic Muscles: for good or for awesome?

Technical Pneumatics
1

Check these awesome pneumatic actuators out.

http://www.festo.com/rep/de_de/assets/Corporate_img/Fluidicmuscle_0375mu_500px.jpg

Fluidic Muscle is a tensile actuator which mimics natural muscular movement. It consists of a contraction system and appropriate connectors. The contraction system is formed by a pressure-tight length of rubber hose, sheathed in high-strength fibres. The fibres create a rhomboidal pattern with a three-dimensional grid structure. When internal pressure is applied, the hose expands in its peripheral direction, thus creating a tensile force and a contraction motion in the muscle’s longitudinal direction. The usable tensile force is at its maximum at the start of the contraction and then decreases in a virtually linear manner as a function of stroke. An efficient operating range is provided with contractions of up to 15% of the nominal length.
The applications of Fluidic Muscle are
as follows:
– Single-acting actuator
– Pneumatic spring

I wish we could use these things on FIRST robots. They are made by FESTO, which provided some of the pneumatic valves in the kit this year, so I’m not sure if they are legal.

ALSO: check out some of the awesome things they have done with this stuff. Look at the menu items, and be sure to check out the videos!

I just stumbled across a video of “Eric’s Arm” and was intrigued, so I decided to share with you guys!

2

WOW. that is incredible. anyone else think of the movie “I, Robot”?

3

I’ve played around with these at work a few times when we’ve had vendors in trying to sell them to us. They’re pricey, but quite awesome.

4

That is awesome but I don`t think First will let us use them they look like they cost alot.

5

The Shadow Robot Company has been using these for a while.
http://www.shadowrobot.com/airmuscles/
They also made a hand that does eerily look like one from “I Robot”
http://www.shadowrobot.com/hand/overview.shtml
Videos of the hand in action:
http://www.shadowrobot.com/hand/videos.shtml

6

these are also called air muscles. there is a company in the UK that makes them with less fancy ends. you can even make them with tubing and mesh. Homemade ones tend to rupture easily. some work with less than 60 psi which would be within safety standards but not on the “must use from supplier” rule. Maybe we could get that rule modified?

7

Here’s an article about making your own “air muscles”.

http://www.imagesco.com/articles/airmuscle/AirMuscleDescription01.html