18,293 research outputs found
Mechatronic design of the Twente humanoid head
This paper describes the mechatronic design of the Twente humanoid head, which has been realized in the purpose of having a research platform for human-machine interaction. The design features a fast, four degree of freedom neck, with long range of motion, and a vision system with three degrees of freedom, mimicking the eyes. To achieve fast target tracking, two degrees of freedom in the neck are combined in a differential drive, resulting in a low moving mass and the possibility to use powerful actuators. The performance of the neck has been optimized by minimizing backlash in the mechanisms, and using gravity compensation. The vision system is based on a saliency algorithm that uses the camera images to determine where the humanoid head should look at, i.e. the focus of attention computed according to biological studies. The motion control algorithm receives, as input, the output of the vision algorithm and controls the humanoid head to focus on and follow the target point. The control architecture exploits the redundancy of the system to show human-like motions while looking at a target. The head has a translucent plastic cover, onto which an internal LED system projects the mouth and the eyebrows, realizing human-like facial expressions
Piezo-electromechanical smart materials with distributed arrays of piezoelectric transducers: Current and upcoming applications
This review paper intends to gather and organize a series of works which discuss the possibility of exploiting the mechanical properties of distributed arrays of piezoelectric transducers. The concept can be described as follows: on every structural member one can uniformly distribute an array of piezoelectric transducers whose electric terminals are to be connected to a suitably optimized electric waveguide. If the aim of such a modification is identified to be the suppression of mechanical vibrations then the optimal electric waveguide is identified to be the 'electric analog' of the considered structural member. The obtained electromechanical systems were called PEM (PiezoElectroMechanical) structures. The authors especially focus on the role played by Lagrange methods in the design of these analog circuits and in the study of PEM structures and we suggest some possible research developments in the conception of new devices, in their study and in their technological application. Other potential uses of PEMs, such as Structural Health Monitoring and Energy Harvesting, are described as well. PEM structures can be regarded as a particular kind of smart materials, i.e. materials especially designed and engineered to show a specific andwell-defined response to external excitations: for this reason, the authors try to find connection between PEM beams and plates and some micromorphic materials whose properties as carriers of waves have been studied recently. Finally, this paper aims to establish some links among some concepts which are used in different cultural groups, as smart structure, metamaterial and functional structural modifications, showing how appropriate would be to avoid the use of different names for similar concepts. © 2015 - IOS Press and the authors
Phononics: Manipulating heat flow with electronic analogs and beyond
The form of energy termed heat that typically derives from lattice
vibrations, i.e. the phonons, is usually considered as waste energy and,
moreover, deleterious to information processing. However, with this colloquium,
we attempt to rebut this common view: By use of tailored models we demonstrate
that phonons can be manipulated like electrons and photons can, thus enabling
controlled heat transport. Moreover, we explain that phonons can be put to
beneficial use to carry and process information. In a first part we present
ways to control heat transport and how to process information for physical
systems which are driven by a temperature bias. Particularly, we put forward
the toolkit of familiar electronic analogs for exercising phononics; i.e.
phononic devices which act as thermal diodes, thermal transistors, thermal
logic gates and thermal memories, etc.. These concepts are then put to work to
transport, control and rectify heat in physical realistic nanosystems by
devising practical designs of hybrid nanostructures that permit the operation
of functional phononic devices and, as well, report first experimental
realizations. Next, we discuss yet richer possibilities to manipulate heat flow
by use of time varying thermal bath temperatures or various other external
fields. These give rise to a plenty of intriguing phononic nonequilibrium
phenomena as for example the directed shuttling of heat, a geometrical phase
induced heat pumping, or the phonon Hall effect, that all may find its way into
operation with electronic analogs.Comment: 24 pages, 16 figures, modified title and revised, accepted for
publication in Rev. Mod. Phy
High Performance, Continuously Tunable Microwave Filters using MEMS Devices with Very Large, Controlled, Out-of-Plane Actuation
Software defined radios (SDR) in the microwave X and K bands offer the
promise of low cost, programmable operation with real-time frequency agility.
However, the real world in which such radios operate requires them to be able
to detect nanowatt signals in the vicinity of 100 kW transmitters. This imposes
the need for selective RF filters on the front end of the receiver to block the
large, out of band RF signals so that the finite dynamic range of the SDR is
not overwhelmed and the desired nanowatt signals can be detected and digitally
processed. This is currently typically done with a number of narrow band
filters that are switched in and out under program control. What is needed is a
small, fast, wide tuning range, high Q, low loss filter that can continuously
tune over large regions of the microwave spectrum. In this paper we show how
extreme throw MEMS actuators can be used to build such filters operating up to
15 GHz and beyond. The key enabling attribute of our MEMS actuators is that
they have large, controllable, out-of-plane actuation ranges of a millimeter or
more. In a capacitance-post loaded cavity filter geometry, this gives
sufficient precisely controllable motion to produce widely tunable devices in
the 4-15 GHz regime.Comment: 12 pages 14 figures 2 table
Development of low frequencies, insulating thick diaphragms for power MEMS applications
Major challenges of micro thermal machines are the thermal insulation and
mechanical tolerance in the case of sliding piston. Switching from piston to
membrane in microengines can alleviate the latest and lead to planar
architectures. However, the thermal isolation would call for very thick
structures which are associated to too high resonant frequencies which are
detrimental to the engine performances. A thermal and mechanical compromise is
to be made. On the contrary, based on fluid structure interaction, using an
incompressible fluid contained in a cavity sealed by deformable diaphragm it
would be possible to design a thick, low frequency insulating diaphragm. The
design involves a simple planar geometry that is easy to manufacture with
standard microelectronics methods. An analytical fluid structure model is
proposed and theoretically validated. Experimental structures are realized and
tested. The model is in agreement with the experimental results. A
dimensionless model is proposed to design hybrid fluid structures for
micromachines
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