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The design and tuning of bio-inspired musculoskeletal bipedal robots with tendon driven series elastic actuation (TD-SEA) including biarticular structures is more complex than for conventional rigid bipedal robots. To achieve a desired dynamic motion goal additional hardware parameters (spring coefficients, rest lengths, lever arms) of both, the TD-SEAs and the biarticular structures, need to be adjusted...
We have developed a whole-body elastic humanoid named "Baneoid," which has seventeen joints including thirteen series elastic joints. This paper presents the aims of the humanoid, describes the design concept, and shows a preliminary experiment of it. Mechanical energy of a humanoid robot consisting of series elastic actuators [1] is the sum of potential energy of each elastic element, gravitational...
This paper presents improved robotic mechanism for automated biopsy procedure. Needle insertion type intervention has the advantages of minimal invasiveness and fast recovery of the patient, but radiation exposure of the clinician and patient and dependency of insertion accuracy on the clinician's skill are drawbacks. The robotic intervention system is a solution of the problems. As one component...
In this paper, a cable actuated elbow rehabilitation robot with integrated active and passive gravity compensation method is proposed. Passive method compensates for the weight of the robot and patient forearm, but full gravity compensation for different patient needs spring stiffness to be adjusted. It seems unreasonable to equip the rehabilitation robot with a different spring for each patient....
The lateral-balancing problem of a single-wheel based robot system has been presented. The basic configuration of the system uses the gyroscopic effect which generates the yawing force as a control input. The friction combined with yawing force enables a robot system to maintain the lateral balance. Although this horizontal configuration gives a better pitching stability to the body system, enough...
Nowadays, robotic solutions have become important applicable techniques in micro-precision agricultural systems. Robotic harvesters such as fruit shakers have been developed using planar mechanisms with high degree of complexity. In this study, an analytical model of forced vibration of fruit stem system is presented. So, the motion equations are solved to obtain the dynamic behaviour of system. Then,...
In this paper design and fabrication of a Robotic Hand using shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators has been discussed. The robot has close similarity to shape of a real hand and has been designed based on human hand model. In order to fabricate the robot parts with high level of accuracy, a 3D printer has been used. Moreover, SMA springs are being used as the actuators and by actuating the SMA springs,...
This paper presents our work on design, modeling, and control of a meso-scale shape memory alloy (SMA) actuated torsion actuator for miniature robots. This novel torsion actuator is bi-directionally activated by a pair of antagonistic SMA torsion springs through alternate Joule heating. First, we present the mechanical design and fabrication approach of this miniature actuator. Then, we present the...
A visually guided shock absorber for high-speed catching without rebound is designed and realized. This visual shock absorber is based on the Maxwell model, which uses plastic deformation to suppress rebounding. The shock absorber is constructed from a spring-based passive elastic body and a servo control-based software damper connected in series. The visual shock absorber is realized in a robot with...
If the control authority of a running system is insufficient to reach a target state in a single step, i.e. if deadbeat control is not possible, then a stabilizing controller is faced with the decision on how to plan intermediate steps. In this work, we compare the performance of a simple greedy control policy (that computes deadbeat inputs and simply caps them) with the optimal performance found...
Two leading qualities of skeletal muscle that produce good performance in uncertain environments are damage tolerance and the ability to modulate impedance. For this reason, robotics researchers are greatly interested in discovering the key characteristics of muscles that give them these properties and replicating them in actuators for robotic devices. This paper describes a method to harness the...
We present the design of simple, centimeter-scale modular actuation units (“Active Cells”) and passive compliant nodes that are electromechanically networked to create macroscopically deformable Modular Active Cell-based Structures (MACROs). Each Active Cell is a single degree-of-freedom linear actuator (a “muscle unit”), consisting of fiberglass end-pieces connecting two strands of Nitinol shape-memory...
This paper presents a prototype of a meso-scale medical robot for Neurosurgical Intracerebral Hemorrhage Evacuation (NICHE). We use shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators for actuating individual degrees-of-freedom (DoFs). Pairs of antagonistic SMA wires enable bidirectional motion of bending joints. A novel torsion joint formed by a pair of antagonistic SMA torsion springs is installed at the distal...
Inspired by biological systems, compliant elements are introduced in the driving train of legged robots with the purpose of recycling energy. This paper presents the design and control concept of the monopedal robot SPEAR, driven by a novel implementation of a Switchable Parallel Elastic Actuator (S-PEA). At the stance phase, the parallel spring in S-PEA works with the actuator to support body weight...
In this paper, we propose a novel robot hand called uGRIPP (Underactuated Gripper for Power and Precision Grasp) which has underactuated fingers for dual-arm manipulation tasks. A newly designed underactuated linkage enables the robot hand to achieve not only an adaptive grasp and a pinch grasp, but also manipulation by a palm of the hand. We introduce performance of the proposed linkage by a static...
In this article, we build dynamic models of 2D compliant links to evaluate injury level in a human-robot interaction. Safety is a premium concern for co-robotic systems. It has been studied that using compliant links in a robot can greatly reduce the injury level. Since most safety criteria are based on tolerance of acceleration of the operator's head during the impact, an efficient and yet accurate...
This paper provides an overview of the embedded joint-space control approach developed for THOR, a new series elastic humanoid. The 60 kg robot features electromechanical linear series elastic actuators (SEAs), enabling low-impedance control of each joint in the lower body via linear to rotary and parallel mechanisms. We present a distributed joint impedance control framework that leverages a custom...
This paper presents a novel nonlinear compliant link. It has two major properties: bi-directionality and stiffening compliance. Bi-directionality means it can be stretched and compressed, and is realized by antagonistic arrangement of an extension spring and a compression spring. Stiffening compliance means it becomes stiffer as it is stretched, and is realized by asymmetric geometry. The links are...
The design of a stable and robust force controller is one of the most important and difficult tasks in rehabilitation robotics. In previous works, the Universal Haptic Pantograph (UHP) was presented as an alternative to conventional arm rehabilitation after a stroke. This robot is composed by a Series Elastic Actuator (SEA) and a Pantograph. In this work an enhanced force control for the UHP is presented...
This study proposes a high-speed locomotion mechanism for a pipe-inspection robot. As a result of the narrow and complex structures of pipeline networks, it is difficult for robots to move quickly within the pipes. The new pneumatic mechanism proposed here realizes high-speed locomotion along with advantageous features for pipe inspection including a small diameter, flexibility, and low weight. First,...
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