Application of chemical reaction based pneumatic power generator to robot finger

Abstract

In this paper, a pneumatic power generator based on the chemical reaction is newly proposed by using a small piston pump for the injection of the fuel. Based on the understanding of chemical reaction property, the piston pump is designed by crank-slider mechanism. The piston pump allows compact size and light weight of the entire power generation system compared to the conventional approaches using blow-down tank. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed power generation system, we theoretically and experimentally analyze the performance of the system. In addition, we realize the power generator and applies it to an underactuated robot finger for the feasibility test.