Research On A Pneumatic Wearable Assist Handling Robot And A Novel Portable Pneumatic Power Source

With the development of the society, mankind is facing a growing number of problems, including disaster rescue, elderly care and battlefield rescue. The ability of human beings are unable to solve these problems. So the development of the wearable pneumatic power assist handling robot and the portable pneumatic power source is of great significance.This paper analyzed the current researches on wearable pneumatic power assist robots both at home and abroad, most of them are big in size, heavy in weight, very expensive, complex in control and unable to work outdoor or in some severe conditions. Therefore, this article put forward a new kind of design of wearable pneumatic power assist handling robot. Power assist handling robot consists of mechanical system, control system and pneumatic system. Among them, the mechanical system includes two mechanical arms around, and each arm is mainly composed of transmission bracket, structure of bar system and self-locked elbow. The structure of bar system is designed by the principle of balance crane. The author analyzed the forced state of the bar system, and the motion of the handling process of the power assist handling robot. Control process is controlled by the Advantech PCI-1710to input control signals to control electric proportional valves. With this design, the control system has been greatly simplified. Pneumatic system includes gas source, electric proportional valve, control valve and cylinder. Finally the author developed the experimental prototype of the robot.As a wearable robot which uses pneumatic system to power itself, its main bottleneck problem is the lack of proper source of portable air compressor. This paper developed a new type of pneumatic power source based on the physical properties of carbon dioxide’s triple point. A pneumatic source can output constant pressure of0.42MPa when dry ice is stored near its triple point. According to its working principle, the author developed a prototype of the portable air compressor source.The author carried out the handling experiments under the weight of14kg and26kg respectively by the use of the prototype of pneumatic power assist handling robot and portable air pressure source. Then it analyzed the force that is needed under different weight when it goes up and down and tested the friction that is needed to overcome when it moves horizontally. The study showed that only a small force is needed under the balanced state when it moves up and down or horizontally. Handling test implementation and the operator’s subjective evaluation confirmed this design is correct and effective...