On July 8, 2025, M.Sc. Eng. Vinícius Vigolo successfully defended his doctoral thesis entitled “Enhancing Energy Efficiency and Robustness in Pneumatic Actuation Systems: A Design and Setup Framework.” The defense took place remotely and included professors from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), RWTH Aachen University, and the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD). The research focuses on the optimization of pneumatic actuation systems, aiming to reduce compressed air consumption without compromising performance or increasing acquisition costs, while ensuring robust and reliable operation. The work involved a detailed study to characterize the loads acting in different pneumatic actuator applications, understand the pressure behavior inside actuator chambers, identify friction patterns, and develop machine learning models for real-time optimization of pneumatic systems. The research was carried out in collaboration with the Chair of Fluid-Mechatronic Systems (Fluidtronics) at the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD), Germany, where part of the experimental work was conducted. By the end of the study, Dr.-Eng. Vinícius Vigolo achieved an approximately 20% reduction in compressed air consumption compared to solutions currently available on the market, thereby demonstrating the feasibility of optimizing pneumatic actuation systems without compromising performance or increasing implementation costs.
