28 research outputs found
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Design, Manufacturing, and Locomotion Studies of Ambulatory Micro-Robots
Biological research over the past several decades has elucidated some of the mechanisms behind highly mobile, efficient, and robust locomotion in insects such as the cockroach. Roboticists have used this information to create biologically-inspired machines capable of running, jumping, and climbing robustly over a variety of terrains. To date, little work has been done to develop an at-scale insect-inspired robot capable of similar feats, due to limitations in fabrication, actuation, and electronics integration at small scales. This thesis addresses these challenges, focusing on the mechanical design and fabrication of a sub-2g walking robot, the Harvard Ambulatory MicroRobot (HAMR). The development of HAMR includes modeling and parameter selection for a two degree of freedom leg powertrain that enables locomotion. In addition, a design inspired by pop-up books that enables fast and repeatable assembly of the miniature walking robot is presented. Finally, a method to drive HAMR resulting in speeds up to 37cm/s is presented, along with simple control schemes.Engineering and Applied Science
Climbing and Walking Robots
Nowadays robotics is one of the most dynamic fields of scientific researches. The shift of robotics researches from manufacturing to services applications is clear. During the last decades interest in studying climbing and walking robots has been increased. This increasing interest has been in many areas that most important ones of them are: mechanics, electronics, medical engineering, cybernetics, controls, and computers. Today’s climbing and walking robots are a combination of manipulative, perceptive, communicative, and cognitive abilities and they are capable of performing many tasks in industrial and non- industrial environments. Surveillance, planetary exploration, emergence rescue operations, reconnaissance, petrochemical applications, construction, entertainment, personal services, intervention in severe environments, transportation, medical and etc are some applications from a very diverse application fields of climbing and walking robots. By great progress in this area of robotics it is anticipated that next generation climbing and walking robots will enhance lives and will change the way the human works, thinks and makes decisions. This book presents the state of the art achievments, recent developments, applications and future challenges of climbing and walking robots. These are presented in 24 chapters by authors throughtot the world The book serves as a reference especially for the researchers who are interested in mobile robots. It also is useful for industrial engineers and graduate students in advanced study
Study on surgical support manipulator system with MRI-navigation
制度:新 ; 文部省報告番号:甲2618号 ; 学位の種類:博士(工学) ; 授与年月日:2008/3/15 ; 早大学位記番号:新477
Design of a Six-Swing-Arm Wheel-Legged Chassis for Forestry and Simulation Analysis of its Obstacle-Crossing Performance
Obstacle-crossing performance is an important criterion for evaluating the power chassis of
forestry machinery. In this paper, a new six-swing-arm wheel-legged chassis (SWC&F) is
designed according to the characteristics of forest terrain, using herringbone legs to control
the ride comfort and stability of the chassis in the process of crossing obstacles. First, the kinematic
model of the SWC&F is established, the coordinate analytical expression of each wheel
centre position is derived, and the swing angle range of each wheel leg of the chassis is calculated
according to the installation position of the hydraulic cylinder. Next, the control model
of the system is constructed, and the obstacle-crossing performance of the SWC&F is analyzed
by ADAMS/Simulink co-simulation using the PID control method and conventional control
method, respectively. The results show that the maximum obstacle crossing height of the
SWC&F can reach 411.1 mm, and the chassis with PID control system has good dynamic
response characteristics and smooth motion, which meets the requirements of forest chassis
obstacle crossing design. The study can provide the foundation for the practical laws of the
physical prototype of the forest vehicle chassis
Robotics 2010
Without a doubt, robotics has made an incredible progress over the last decades. The vision of developing, designing and creating technical systems that help humans to achieve hard and complex tasks, has intelligently led to an incredible variety of solutions. There are barely technical fields that could exhibit more interdisciplinary interconnections like robotics. This fact is generated by highly complex challenges imposed by robotic systems, especially the requirement on intelligent and autonomous operation. This book tries to give an insight into the evolutionary process that takes place in robotics. It provides articles covering a wide range of this exciting area. The progress of technical challenges and concepts may illuminate the relationship between developments that seem to be completely different at first sight. The robotics remains an exciting scientific and engineering field. The community looks optimistically ahead and also looks forward for the future challenges and new development
Concept, modeling and experimental characterization of the modulated friction inertial drive (MFID) locomotion principle:application to mobile microrobots
A mobile microrobot is defined as a robot with a size ranging from 1 in3 down to 100 µm3 and a motion range of at least several times the robot's length. Mobile microrobots have a great potential for a wide range of mid-term and long-term applications such as minimally invasive surgery, inspection, surveillance, monitoring and interaction with the microscale world. A systematic study of the state of the art of locomotion for mobile microrobots shows that there is a need for efficient locomotion solutions for mobile microrobots featuring several degrees of freedom (DOF). This thesis proposes and studies a new locomotion concept based on stepping motion considering a decoupling of the two essential functions of a locomotion principle: slip generation and slip variation. The proposed "Modulated Friction Inertial Drive" (MFID) principle is defined as a stepping locomotion principle in which slip is generated by the inertial effect of a symmetric, axial vibration, while the slip variation is obtained from an active modulation of the friction force. The decoupling of slip generation and slip variation also has lead to the introduction of the concept of a combination of on-board and off-board actuation. This concept allows for an optimal trade-off between robot simplicity and power consumption on the one hand and on-board motion control on the other hand. The stepping motion of a MFID actuator is studied in detail by means of simulation of a numeric model and experimental characterization of a linear MFID actuator. The experimental setup is driven by piezoelectric actuators that vibrate in axial direction in order to generate slip and in perpendicular direction in order to vary the contact force. After identification of the friction parameters a good match between simulation and experimental results is achieved. MFID motion velocity has shown to depend sinusoidally on the phase shift between axial and perpendicular vibration. Motion velocity also increases linearly with increasing vibration amplitudes and driving frequency. Two parameters characterizing the MFID stepping behavior have been introduced. The step efficiency ηstep expresses the efficiency with which the actuator is capable of transforming the axial vibration in net motion. The force ratio qF evaluates the ease with which slip is generated by comparing the maximum inertial force in axial direction to the minimum friction force. The suitability of the MFID principle for mobile microrobot locomotion has been demonstrated by the development and characterization of three locomotion modules with between 2 and 3 DOF. The microrobot prototypes are driven by piezoelectric and electrostatic comb drive actuators and feature a characteristic body length between 20 mm and 10 mm. Characterization results include fast locomotion velocities up to 3 mm/s for typical driving voltages of some tens of volts and driving frequencies ranging from some tens of Hz up to some kHz. Moreover, motion resolutions in the nanometer range and very low power consumption of some tens of µW have been demonstrated. The advantage of the concept of a combination of on-board and off-board actuation has been demonstrated by the on-board simplicity of two of the three prototypes. The prototypes have also demonstrated the major advantage of the MFID principle: resonance operation has shown to reduce the power consumption, reduce the driving voltage and allow for simple driving electronics. Finally, with the fabrication of 2 × 2 mm2 locomotion modules with 2 DOF, a first step towards the development of mm-sized mobile microrobots with on-board motion control is made
Design of CLARI: A miniature modular origami passive shape-morphing robot
Miniature robots provide unprecedented access to confined environments and
show promising potential for novel applications such as search-and-rescue and
high-value asset inspection. The capability of body deformation further
enhances the reachability of these small robots in complex cluttered terrains
similar to those of insects and soft arthropods. Motivated by this concept, we
present CLARI, an insect-scale 2.59g quadrupedal robot capable of body
deformation with tethered electrical connections for power and control and
manufactured using laminate fabrication and assembled using origami pop-up
techniques. In order to enable locomotion in multiple shape configurations, we
designed a novel body architecture comprising of modular, actuated leg
mechanisms. Overall, CLARI has eight independently actuated degrees of freedom
(two per modular leg unit) driven by custom piezoelectric actuators, making it
mechanically dextrous. We characterize open-loop robot locomotion at multiple
stride frequencies (1-10Hz) using multiple gaits (trot, walk, etc.) in three
different fixed body shapes (long, symmetric, wide) and illustrate the robot's
capabilities. Finally, we demonstrate preliminary results of CLARI locomoting
with a compliant body in open terrain and through a laterally constrained gap,
a novel capability for legged robots. Our results represent the first step
towards achieving effective cluttered terrain navigation with adaptable
compliant robots in real-world environments
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Soft-Material Robotics
There has been a boost of research activities in robotics using soft materials in the past ten years. It is expected that the use and control of soft materials can help realize robotic systems that are safer, cheaper, and more adaptable than the level that the conventional rigid-material robots can achieve. Contrary to a number of existing review and position papers on soft-material robotics, which mostly present case studies and/or discuss trends and challenges, the review focuses on the fundamentals of the research field. First, it gives a definition of softmaterial robotics and introduces its history, which dates back to the late 1970s. Second, it provides characterization of soft-materials, actuators and sensing elements. Third, it presents two general approaches to mathematical modelling of kinematics of soft-material robots; that is, piecewise constant curvature approximation and variable curvature approach, as well as their related statics and dynamics. Fourth, it summarizes control methods that have been used for soft-material robots and other continuum robots in both model-based fashion and model-free fashion. Lastly, applications or potential usage of soft-material robots are described related to wearable robots, medical robots, grasping and manipulation
Bio-Inspired Robotics
Modern robotic technologies have enabled robots to operate in a variety of unstructured and dynamically-changing environments, in addition to traditional structured environments. Robots have, thus, become an important element in our everyday lives. One key approach to develop such intelligent and autonomous robots is to draw inspiration from biological systems. Biological structure, mechanisms, and underlying principles have the potential to provide new ideas to support the improvement of conventional robotic designs and control. Such biological principles usually originate from animal or even plant models, for robots, which can sense, think, walk, swim, crawl, jump or even fly. Thus, it is believed that these bio-inspired methods are becoming increasingly important in the face of complex applications. Bio-inspired robotics is leading to the study of innovative structures and computing with sensory–motor coordination and learning to achieve intelligence, flexibility, stability, and adaptation for emergent robotic applications, such as manipulation, learning, and control. This Special Issue invites original papers of innovative ideas and concepts, new discoveries and improvements, and novel applications and business models relevant to the selected topics of ``Bio-Inspired Robotics''. Bio-Inspired Robotics is a broad topic and an ongoing expanding field. This Special Issue collates 30 papers that address some of the important challenges and opportunities in this broad and expanding field