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Inspired from Hogan's myoelectric processor in 1980, this study presents a stochastic sEMG processing method to estimate the muscle activation level for manipulator control. Hogan's previous study showed the feasibility to estimate the muscle activation level with multi-channel sEMG under static force condition. However, it is difficult to continuously estimate muscle activation during dynamic contraction...
The paper parents our recent development on the earthworm-like soft robot. The robot is designed through combination of smart electro-active polymer (EAP) materials and the efficient expandable structure. The employed EAP material, called ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) that can directly provide the actuation to the expendable scissor-lift structure, so as to enable the robot to mimic locomotion...
We describe Team WPI-CMU's approach to the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), focusing on our strategy to avoid failures that required physical human intervention. We implemented safety features in our controller to detect potential catastrophic failures, stop the current behavior, and allow remote intervention by a human supervisor. Our safety methods and operator interface worked: we avoided catastrophe...
Electromagnetic actuators are versatile and able to meet demanding requirements, such as operation in very low or very high temperatures. When the actuator is used in a high-temperature environment, we need to know how the force-producing capability of the actuator is influenced by the operating temperature. Previous research works [1-2] fail to show the dependence of the actuator force on the temperature.
We present an upper-limb assistive device for the elderly at home. In previous researches, the passive systems were manually adjusted to support arm movement with holding different weights of objects, and the active systems equipped with multiple actuators and sensors were too complex and expensive to use in hospitals and rehabilitation clinics as well as homes. If the assist for the activities of...
Emerging bioinspired underwater systems, such as autonomous ocean mapping and surveillance vehicles, that maneuver through their environment by mimicking the swimming motion of aquatic animals, can benefit from soft monolithic actuators and control surfaces capable of undergoing complex deformations. Herein, an electrically driven ionic polymer–metal composite (IPMC) artificial muscle with uniquely...
We have developed a novel three dimensional tactile sensor based on vertically aligned carbon nanotubes. The carbon nanotubes were directly synthesized on silicon microstructures and these CNTs-on-microstructures were integrated to flexible polydimethylsiloxane layers. Each tactile sensor has four sensing parts and the direction of force can be detected by monitoring the increase or decrease of electrical...
We report contraction-expansion array (CEA) microchannels for high-yield blood plasma separation utilizing differential inertial migration. An abrupt change of the cross-sectional area curves fluid streams and accelerates the flow velocity, which induces Dean flow. Utilizing the balance between inertial lift force and Dean drag force, we were able to separate blood plasma from human whole blood with...
In this work, we explore a promising electroactive polymer (EAP), called ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) as a material to use as a multi degree of freedom actuator. Configuration of our interest is a cylindrical IPMC with 2-DOF electromechanical actuation capability. The desired functionality was achieved by fabricating unique inter-digitated electrodes. Firstly, a 3D finite element (FE) model...
This paper presents an efficient region-based WP (weighted prediction) with global brightness change detection for real-time H.264 encoder. We improve WP for local brightness changes using the reference reordering, without additional memory bandwidth and computation for ME (motion estimation). We also show that the region-based WP can be extended to an MB-based WP with the marginal increase of computation,...
The capabilities and advantages of vacuum interrupters have been widely recognized on switching and controlling the fault currents in medium voltage level, and there have been doing various research and developments for using vacuum interrupters in transmission and distribution lines due to its environmental friendliness. Axial magnetic field electrodes are widely used in vacuum interrupters because...
Force realization system and device We report the characterization of mechanical properties of a flux-quantum force device, which is designed and fabricated to trap superconducting flux quantums for generating pico-newton standard forces, at variable temperature. Using our scanning fiber imaging technique we micro-positioned an optic fiber onto the target position of the device and measured the device's...
Design and relay-based control of a novel linear magnetostrictive motor is presented in this paper. The magnetostrictive material used here is Terfenol-D, an alloy of the formula Tb0.3Dy0.7Fe1.9. In response to a traveling magnetic field inside the Terfenol-D element, it moves in the opposite direction with a peristaltic motion. The proposed design offers the flexibility to operate the motor in various...
In recent years, several surgical or assistant robots have made a successful debut to surgical theatre. Due to their large size, and high price, there is a growing need for the miniaturization of these surgical robots. In this paper, a design methodology for a compact surgical robot is presented. Considering workspace and force requirements, a simulation and experiments are conducted to determine...
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