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A control valve is the most heavy and expensive device in the pneumatic driving system for a soft mechanism. To realize a compact and inexpensive pneumatic driving system, the size, weight, and cost of the control valve must be reduced. In the previous study, a small-sized servo valve that can control the flow rate using a diaphragm and gate mechanism, driven by a low-cost RC servo motor, was proposed and tested. However, the previous servo valve using gate mechanism should adjust the relative positions of the rotating disk and gate mechanism to achieve the desired flow rate characteristics. In this study, to decrease assembling time for adjusting the valve characteristics, a slide-gate mechanism servo valve that can adjust the valve opening of gate based on the rotational angle of a rotational cam with slope is proposed and tested. Evidently, the adjustment time of the tested valve significantly decreases compared with the previous valve. Further, the flow rate characteristics of the valve can be easily changed by replacing the cam. Herein, the construction and operating principle of the tested valves, the analytical models for obtaining the desired flow rate characteristics of the tested valves, and its result are reported.
Research papers (academic journals)
