Research On Wearable Pneumatic Balanced Handling Assist Robot

In order to solve the lack of labor problem which will occur in the future when our society is aging, this research developed a novel wearable pneumatic balanced handling assist robot to provide assist force for help the care provider people. This will results in not only the high price but also low reliability.At first, this paper make an analysis on the current development situation of wearable pneumatic balanced handling assist robot, both in China and abroad. We find that most of them have some complex control systems and many sensors. In this research, a new wearable pneumatic balanced handling assist robot is proposed. It can be controlled in a very simple control system.Wearable pneumatic assist robot with balanced handling consists of mechanical system, control system and pneumatic system. Among them, the mechanical includes two mechanical arms, and each arm is mainly composed of parallelogram linkage mechanism, pulley guide rail, slider support and self-locked. The control system mainly input control signals to the electric proportional valves by the Advantech PCI-1710. The pneumatic system includes gas source, electric proportional valve, control valve and cylinder.In this research, a new design of a sliding rail which consists of pulley and guide rail is proposed. It can make the robotic arm move freely under the heavy load condition. And after continuous optimization, the robot have enough integrating degree with body.In this research, a parallel quadrilateral mechanism is proposed. This mechanism can provide the function of "balance at any position" together with horizontal rail and vertical rail, thus can simplify the control algorithm in a great deal.The author carried out the handling experiments under the different weight by the use of the wearable pneumatic assist robot with balanced handling and portable air pressure source.Then we analyzed the force that is needed under different weight and tested the friction that is needed to overcome when it moves horizontally. The experiment verified that under the balanced state, a smaller force can realize lifting and moving. Handling test implementation and the operator's subjective evaluation confirmed this design is correct and effective.