A Cellular Control Architecture for Compliant Artificial Muscles

Dividing an artificial muscle material into a network of small cells could provide performance benefits and eliminate unwanted behaviors such as hysteresis. This paper presents a scheme for the position control or compliance control of an artificial muscle having this kind of cellular structure. Each cell contracts or relaxes probabilistically in response to a global feedback control loop, which measures only the aggregate force and displacement of the muscle. The stochastic nature of the cells produces smooth, reliable global behavior in the artificial muscle. By choosing a control law such that the expected response of the artificial muscle is equal to the desired response, good tracking control is achieved