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Compliant actuators have found their place in areas of prosthetics, rehabilitation and robot locomotion because they enable safe human-robot and stable robot-environment interaction, both non-trivial to achieve using conventional rigid actuation. These actuators are capable of varying their equilibrium position and apparent output stiffness in a way humans change the resting position and compliance...
We present a new palm design that features a dense array of micro-spines for the JPL Robosimian human-scale climbing robot. A linearly-constrained spine mechanism is introduced and analyzed using adhesion and stiffness models. This mechanism achieves a spine density of 19/cm2 and a mean adhesion of 67N (207kPa) on coarse concrete surfaces. The models are validated on two different surfaces with two...
Actuation systems featuring inherent series compliance have over time entered more and more the focus of robotic research. The advantages are good force/torque controllability, an increased robustness against unforeseen shocks and other disturbances, and the possibility to store elastic energy. In order to fully enable Series Elastic Actuators (SEAs), a thorough understanding of the actuators internal...
Expansion Rod Capturing Nozzle Device is developed to achieve the function of capturing the non-cooperative satellite by locking the main engine nozzle. Nozzle structure is captured by the device through its throat, so the size and mass are small. The overall structure design of the device and the operating principle of the Expansion Rod mechanism are described. A method of Meshing Profile Modeling...
Miniaturization of Programmable Matter is a major challenge. Much of the difficulty stems from size and power requirements of internal actuators. This paper demonstrates that external energy can be used to both move modules and actuate their bonding mechanism. It presents a lattice style Programmable Matter system whose neighbor to neighbor lattice distance is 14mm. Previous work has shown a chain...
In this work, we present a proof of concept of a novel variable stiffness actuator. The actuator design is based on the conceptual design proposed in earlier work, and is such that the apparent output stiffness of the actuator can be changed independently of the output position and without any energy cost. Experimental results show that the behavior of the prototype is in accordance with the theoretical...
The use of robots in assistive roles will be an increasingly significant application for robotics. Assistive robots need to physically interact with humans in a safe manner. We propose the use of inflatable robot links as structural members instead of traditional rigid links. We believe such links would allow the development of inherently safe robots. For these robots to be useful in tasks such as...
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