Research on Pneumatic Manipulators for Industrial Part Loading and Unloading Application

摘要

In some industrial application, only the normal accuracy is required and the cost and high efficiency are considered as vital factors. In this case, the precious electric servo-motors are not suitable for normal part loading and unloading manipulators. Pneumatic control is considered to be a good choice owing to its low-cost and high efficiency, but its positioning accuracy is still a problem needed to be studied. In this paper, a manipulator with pneumatic driving cylinders is introduced, for which the control method for positioning of pneumatic cylinder is studied. First the non-linear mathematic model of pneumatic cylinder is established and the learning control strategy with forecast is used. The positioning can be controlled within ±0.1 mm. Moreover, an adjusting device with high accuracy and flexibility is presented, of which the adjusting range is 30mm and the adjusting accuracy is within 0.05mm and which can be used for initial adjusting of the manipulator in vertical orientation. The practical working operation has shown that the pneumatic manipulator can meet the requirement in accuracy with low cost and high efficiency.