A survey on pneumatic muscle actuators modeling

The aim of this article is to provide a survey on the most popular modeling approaches for Pneumatic Muscle Actuators (PMAs). PMAs are highly non-linear pneumatic actuators where their elongation is proportional to the interval pressure. During the last decade, there has been an increase in the industrial and scientific utilization of PMAs, due to their advantages such as high strength and small weight, while various types of PMAs with different technical characteristics have been appeared in the literature. This article will: a) analyze the PMA´s operation from a mathematical modeling perspective, b) present their merits and drawbacks of the most common PMAs, and c) establish the fundamental basis for developing industrial applications and conducting research in this field.