A pneumatic drive for a medical robot includes a manifold having cylinders extending in a first direction, and respective rods corresponding to the cylinders, the rods extending on one side of the cylinders in the first direction. The manifold includes air supply ports that feed the cylinders with air for moving the respective rods forward and backward. The air supply ports are provided on another side of the manifold in the first direction.

A closed-circuit, self-contained hydraulic axis includes an electric motor, a hydraulic cylinder configured to be connected to a load and a main pump driven by the electric motor to pump hydraulic fluid through the circuit. Pressure connections of the pump are connected to the respective chambers of the cylinder such that the cylinder rod is configured to extend and retract depending on a direction of flow of the hydraulic fluid through the main pump. The hydraulic axis includes a main accumulator connected to the pump via first control valve, an energy storage accumulator connected to the pump via a second control valve, and a charge pump. The hydraulic axis is switchable between a first operating mode that is free of energy storage in the energy storage accumulator, and a second operating mode in which energy is stored in the energy storage accumulator.

A hydraulic system includes: a cylinder in which an interior of a tube is divided by a piston into a first pressure chamber and a second pressure chamber; a first bidirectional pump connected to the first pressure chamber by a first supply/discharge line; a second bidirectional pump connected to the second pressure chamber by a second supply/discharge line and coupled to the first bidirectional pump in a manner enabling torque to be transmitted between the first and second bidirectional pumps; a relay line connecting the first and second bidirectional pumps such that a hydraulic liquid discharged from one of the first and second bidirectional pumps is introduced into the other of the first and second bidirectional pumps; and an electric motor that drives the first or second bidirectional pump. At least one of the first and second bidirectional pumps is a variable displacement pump whose delivery capacity per rotation is freely variable.

A transmission system (10) includes a first piston (12), a second piston (14) and a modulator piston (16). The first piston (12) receives an input force (F.sub.IN), the second piston (14) transmits an output force (F.sub.OUT), and the modulator piston (16) transmits a modulating force (F.sub.ACT>which modulates the input force (F.sub.IN) received by the second piston (14) to implement tremor cancellation and force and/or provide variable motion scaling.

A hydraulic pressure generating device includes a base body having a master cylinder configured to generate a brake hydraulic pressure and a slave cylinder configured to generate a brake hydraulic pressure. The base body is provided with a motor configured as a driving source for the slave cylinder and a control device configured to control the motor. A motor shaft of the motor, a cylinder axis of the master cylinder, and a cylinder axis of the slave cylinder are disposed in parallel with each other. Then a virtual plane including the cylinder axis of the master cylinder is set as a reference plane, a housing of the control device is disposed on one side of the reference plane and the motor is disposed on the other side of the reference plane.

To make it possible to prevent a decrease in work speed due to a decrease in the speed of a given actuator when an operator unintentionally performs a fine operation of the control lever of the other actuator in a state in which the given actuator is driven by the hydraulic fluid delivered from a plurality of pumps, a controller (41) sets, as a composite dead zone line serving as a boundary of a composite dead zone, a composite dead zone line such that as an operation amount in one direction of a control lever (12L) or (13L) of a control lever device (12) or (13) is increased, the width of the composite dead zone corresponding to an operation amount in the other direction of the control lever is widened, and corrects the operation amount in the other direction such that the demanded flow rate of an actuator increases from zero, when the control lever is operated in the other direction in a state in which the operation amount in the one direction of the control lever remains within a range of the composite dead zone, and the operation amount in the other direction exceeds the composite dead zone line.

The invention relates to a hydraulic transmission unit for an actuator, which hydraulic transmission unit can be filled with a hydraulic fluid and has a first and a second chamber which are hydraulically interconnected and of which one is designed as a drive chamber and the other one is designed as an output chamber. At least in the first chamber, a piston is arranged movably along a piston axis, such that this piston subdivides the first chamber into a variable-volume working chamber and a rear-side chamber, the rear-side chamber being delimited at least partially by a bellows element having a variable axial length. The invention further relates to an actuator having such a hydraulic transmission unit.

To make it possible to prevent a decrease in work speed due to a decrease in the speed of a given actuator when an operator unintentionally performs a fine operation of the control lever of the other actuator in a state in which the given actuator is driven by the hydraulic fluid delivered from a plurality of pumps, a controller (41) sets, as a composite dead zone line serving as a boundary of a composite dead zone, a composite dead zone line such that as an operation amount in one direction of a control lever (12L) or (13L) of a control lever device (12) or (13) is increased, the width of the composite dead zone corresponding to an operation amount in the other direction of the control lever is widened, and corrects the operation amount in the other direction such that the demanded flow rate of an actuator increases from zero, when the control lever is operated in the other direction in a state in which the operation amount in the one direction of the control lever remains within a range of the composite dead zone, and the operation amount in the other direction exceeds the composite dead zone line.

Aspects of the disclosure relate to methods, apparatus, and systems for actuating a soft robot. An actuation system includes a camshaft, a motor configured to drive the camshaft to rotate around a rotational axis, and an air bladder configured to expel fluid from the air bladder during compression and draw fluid into the air bladder during decompression. The system further includes a cam coupled to the camshaft that is configured to rotate around the rotational axis when the camshaft is driven and compress or decompress the air bladder based on a physical profile of the cam as the cam rotates around the rotational axis. The system also includes a soft robot coupled to the air bladder, wherein the soft robot is actuated to move based on the fluid inserted into the soft robot during compression or the fluid removed from the soft robot during decompression.

A hydraulic system includes: a cylinder in which an interior of a tube is divided by a piston into a first pressure chamber and a second pressure chamber; a first bidirectional pump connected to the first pressure chamber by a first supply/discharge line; a second bidirectional pump connected to the second pressure chamber by a second supply/discharge line and coupled to the first bidirectional pump in a manner enabling torque to be transmitted between the first and second bidirectional pumps; a relay line connecting the first and second bidirectional pumps such that a hydraulic liquid discharged from one of the first and second bidirectional pumps is introduced into the other of the first and second bidirectional pumps; and an electric motor that drives the first or second bidirectional pump. At least one of the first and second bidirectional pumps is a variable displacement pump whose delivery capacity per rotation is freely variable.