2 research outputs found
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High-performance series elastic actuation
textMobile legged robots have the potential to restructure many aspects of our lives in the near future. Whether for applications in household care, entertainment, or disaster response, these systems depend on high-performance actuators to improve their basic capabilities. The work presented here focuses on developing new high-performance actuators, specifically series elastic actuators, to address this need. We adopt a system-wide optimization approach, dealing with factors which influence performance at the levels of mechanical design, electrical system design, and control. Using this approach and based on a set of performance metrics, we produce an actuator, the UT-SEA, which achieves leading empirical results in terms of power-to-weight, force control, size, and system efficiency. We also develop general high-performance control techniques for both force- and position-controlled actuators, some of which were adopted for use on NASA-JSC's Valkyrie Humanoid robot and were used during DARPA's DRC Trials 2013 robotics competition.Electrical and Computer Engineerin
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Design and development of a modular robot for research use
textThis report summarizes the work performed for the design and development of the Proteus research robot. The Proteus design is motivated by the need for a modular, flexible, and usable autonomous robotic platform. To accomplish these goals, a modular hardware architecture coupled with low-power, high-computation processing is presented. The robot is subdivided into three layers: mobility, computation, and application. The interface between layers is characterized by well defined APIs and may be individually replaced to achieve different functionality. An efficient low-level event scheduler is described along with higher-level software algorithms for motion control and navigation. Experiments of Proteus robots are provided including field tests and collaboration with outside research institutions.Electrical and Computer Engineerin