A novel piezohydraulic actuator as artificial muscle in robotic applications

Modern robotic applications involve close contact to the human and consequently, require apart from performance a high degree of safety from their actuators. Further, the dexterous manipulation abilities of a human are not yet inherently realized by technical media. In this work a novel piezohydraulic actuator is presented aiming at a) high power density, b) human-like force/velocity characteristic, c) intrinsic passive safety and low reflected inertia, and d) high robustness. It is shown why the piezohydraulic actuation principle is appropriate to mimic the behavior of a human muscle and, as a consequence, desirable for robotic applications. A model of the actuator is also presented together with simulation and experimental results.