2 research outputs found
Modular Attachment System for Tactical Robot
The goals of this report are to clearly define the problem and the scope of this project, present information regarding background design research, explain the process taken to reach the final design, go over the part procurement and manufacturing process, outline the assembly steps, and verify the design against the criteria through testing. The problem and scope of the project were defined using the constraints provided by the project sponsor, Blueline robotics. Blueline needs a modular attachment system for their tactical robot. The completed background research contains existing robot solutions that deal with similar tasks. Many of these existing robots lack modularity at the base of the arm for a variety of general attachments. As a result, further research of general “quick-release” attachment points or systems was necessary and done through existing patents. Further brainstorming, functional decomposition, morphological matrices, and decision matrices were utilized to come to a design concept for the preliminary design review (PDR). Discoveries through the prototyping process after the PDR led to re-designing components of the design due to parts being too complex and expensive to manufacture. The final design retains all the functionally of the previously proposed design in a simpler, more cost-effective manner. The final design was manufactured both on Cal Poly’s campus, and at the team members’ residences. The final design was verified to have met the given criteria through multiple tests. For organization and project management, a Gantt chart and Quality Function Deployment chart were created to outline goals, establish timelines, and kindle proper design direction under identified specifications
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Performance and manufacturing considerations for series elastic actuators
Robots are becoming an integral part of our lives. We are already physically connected with them through many robotic applications such as exoskeletons in military, orthosis devices in health care, collaborative robots in industry, etc. While the integration of robots improves the quality of human life, it still poses a safety concern during the physical human-robot interaction. Series Elastic Actuators (SEAs) play an important role in improving the safety of human-robot interaction and collaboration. Considering the fast expansion of robotic applications in our lives and the safety benefits of SEAs, it is conceivable that SEAs are going to play an important role in robotic applications in every aspect of human life. This dissertation focuses on reducing the cost, simplifying the use and improving the performance of SEAs. The first research focus in this dissertation is to reduce the cost of SEAs. Robots are successful in reducing production and service costs when used but the capital cost of robot installations are very high. As robotics research shifts to safe robotic applications, reducing the cost of SEAs will greatly help to deploy this technology in more robotic applications and to increase their accessibility to a broader range of researchers and educators. With this motivation, I present a case study on reducing the cost of a SEA while maintaining high force and position control performance and industrial grade service life. The second research focus in this dissertation is to simplify the laborious gain selection process of the cascaded controllers of SEAs. In order to simplify the gain selection process of the impedance controllers of SEAs, an optimal feedback gain selection methodology was developed. Using this method, the feedback gains of the cascaded PD-type impedance controllers of SEAs can easily be calibrated. The developed method allows the users to find the highest feedback gains for a desired phase-margin. Beyond the low-cost realization and simple controller tuning of SEAs, performance improvements on SEAs are possible utilizing the series elasticity in these actuators. As the third research focus in this dissertation, a sequential convex optimization-based motion planning technique is developed in order to improve the joint velocity capabilities of SEAs with nonlinearities. By using this method, higher joint velocities, that are not achievable with the rigid counterparts of SEAs can be achievedMechanical Engineerin