Dynamic simulation of pneumatic muscle actuator in Matlab/Simulink environment

The pneumatic actuator with artificial muscles in antagonistic connection was designed and realized as result of several research projects solved at the authors' workplace. Three simulation models of this actuator using different muscle models were created in Matlab/Simulink environment for obtaining of some actuator dynamic characteristics. The position of the actuator arm can be obtained from subsystem of gear nonlinearity in simulation models. In the paper there are presented two approaches to the modeling of gear mechanism: by measured and approximated static characteristic of the actuator and by mathematical description of gear using equation of motion for rotation movement. The dynamic responses of the actuator arm position obtained by simulation of the designed models are also presented in the paper.