Simulation And Experimental Study Of Driving Characteristics Of Water Hydraulic Muscle

The Underwater Manipulator (UM) is the important instrument of the Deep Submergence Vehicle (DSV) and Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV). At present the UM is often driven by oil hydraulic cylinder or oil hydraulic motor. Although it has been applied for many years, there are still some unavoidable shortcomings, such as poor compatibility with the ocean and susceptible to corrosion. Therefore someone puts forward the idea of applying Water Hydraulic Muscle (WHM) to drive joint of the UM.Compared with hydraulic cylinder and the traditional actuators, the WHM has many outstanding advantages, such as large output force, fast response, high efficiency, suitable for underwater operations and so on. Because of the big compression difference of the driving media, the driving characteristic of the WHM should be analyzed. So, the driving characteristics of WHM is studied through simulation analysis and experiments in this paper.The first chapter of this paper analyzes the application situation of the UM, and points out the importance of applying WHM to drive the UM joint. The research situations of the Pneumatic artificial muscles and the WHM have been studied and the main content of this paper is given out.The second chapter of this paper firstly analyzes the structure of the WHM, and selects the materials for each part of the WHM suitable for underwater operations. According to the principle of energy conservation, the static mathematical model of the WHM is founded. The structural parameters impact to the output force of the WHM is analyzed through simulation.The third chapter of this paper designs a control loops for the WHM. Because the flow equation and the kinetic equation of the WHM are derived, the driving characteristics simulation model of the WHM is established. Simulations for different parameters of the WHM structures and of the control loops were carried out. Through the simulations, a lot of data are obtained to be compared with the experiments.The fourth chapter of this paper designs the system schematic of the driving characteristics experiment of WHM. In accordance with the experimental principle, the half bridge control loop system and the DAQ&DAC system are successfully built, and the rest two sub-systems are designed and are being manufacturing.The fifth chapter of this paper designs the static and the dynamic experiment program. And the pressure control characteristic experimental of the hydraulic half bridge control loop is carried out. All the preparations for the next step have been done.