In a typical pneumatic soft actuation system, the control valve is often heavy and expensive, making a compact and economical control valve highly desirable. In addition to improving the valve itself, reducing the number of valves required can also be beneficial. To address this requirement, this study proposes and tests a multi-port switching valve based on a slide-gate mechanism. This valve is designed to enable the supply or exhaust of multiple actuators simultaneously, thereby reducing the number of valves required to drive a complex pneumatic actuator with multiple chambers. The main components of the proposed valve are a rotational cam, multiple ports, and 12 gate pins. The construction and operating principle of the valve and a design method for a rotational cam are described in this study. Furthermore, the results of the designed valve for radial bending and extension of a flexible robot arm are also reported.
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