PASIVE AIR LEAKAGE DETECTION MECHANISM for A VACUUM SUCTION ACTUATOR

Recently, research on vacuum actuators for holding and transporting objects has been actively conducted. In particular, many vacuum actuators are used to hold and transport several objects at once. However, there is a possibility that a problem of reducing vacuum efficiency may occur when several vacuum actuators are used simultaneously in the process of transporting multiple objects. The first factor is that, due to the diversity of the object's shape, the vacuum pad of some actuators may not touch the object, so that gripping may not occur. Second, some actuators' vacuum pad touches the object, but the pad is not completely blocked, resulting in air leakage. This paper used a spring mechanism to solve this problem and developed a vacuum gripping actuator that can block airflow into the actuator that is not used for vacuum efficiency when driving the system before the system is driven. Due to the spring inside the actuator that can play the role of passive compliance, the length can be adjusted, so even if the distance to the object is not constant, it can hold and transport several objects. Furthermore, the pretension of the spring makes it possible to block air inflow initially. We have also developed a brake system using pneumatic and tendon to hold the actuators to maintain each actuator's length when holding and moving objects. We unified the driving method for operating both systems for simplicity by receiving pneumatic pressure from a pneumatic compressor.