Design and Control of Chemomuscle: A Liquid-Propellant-Powered Muscle Actuation System

Author(s):  
Xiangrong Shen ◽  
Daniel Christ

This paper describes the design and control of a new chemomuscle actuation system for robotic systems, especially the mobile systems inspired by biological principles. Developed based on the pneumatic artificial muscle, a chemomuscle actuation system features a high power density, as well as similar characteristics to the biological muscles. Furthermore, by introducing monopropellant (a special type of liquid fuel) as the energy storage media, the chemomuscle system leverages the high energy density of liquid fuel and provides a compact form of high-pressure gas supply with a simple structure. The introduction of monopropellant addresses the limitation of pneumatic supply on mobile devices and thus is expected to facilitate the future application of artificial muscle on biorobotic systems. In this paper, the design of a chemomuscle actuation system is presented, as well as a robust controller design that provides effective control for this highly nonlinear system. To demonstrate the proposed chemomuscle actuation system, an experimental prototype is constructed, on which the proposed control algorithm provides good tracking performance.

Author(s):  
Xiangrong Shen ◽  
Daniel Christ

This paper describes the design and control of a new monopropellant-powered muscle actuation system for robotic systems, especially the mobile systems inspired by biological principles. Based on the pneumatic artificial muscle, this system features a high power density, as well as characteristics similar to biological muscles. By introducing the monopropellant as the energy storage media, this system utilizes the high energy density of liquid fuel and provides a high-pressure gas supply with a simple structure in a compact form. This addresses the limitations of pneumatic supplies on mobile devices and thus is expected to facilitate the future application of artificial muscles on bio-robotic systems. In this paper, design of the monopropellant-powered muscle actuation system is presented as well as a robust controller design that provides effective control for this highly nonlinear system. To demonstrate the proposed muscle actuation system, an experimental prototype was constructed on which the proposed control algorithm provides good tracking performance.


Author(s):  
Sai-Kit Wu ◽  
Garrett Waycaster ◽  
Tad Driver ◽  
Xiangrong Shen

A robust control approach is presented in this part of the paper, which provides an effective servo control for the novel PAM actuation system presented in Part I. Control of PAM actuation systems is generally considered as a challenging topic, due primarily to the highly nonlinear nature of such system. With the introduction of new design features (variable-radius pulley and spring-return mechanism), the new PAM actuation system involves additional nonlinearities (e.g. the nonlinear relationship between the joint angle and the actuator length), which further increasing the control difficulty. To address this issue, a nonlinear model based approach is developed. The foundation of this approach is a dynamic model of the new actuation system, which covers the major nonlinear processes in the system, including the load dynamics, force generation from internal pressure, pressure dynamics, and mass flow regulation with servo valve. Based on this nonlinear model, a sliding mode control approach is developed, which provides a robust control of the joint motion in the presence of model uncertainties and disturbances. This control was implemented on an experimental setup, and the effectiveness of the controller demonstrated by sinusoidal tracking at different frequencies.


Author(s):  
Dominik Scholtes ◽  
Stefan Seelecke ◽  
Gianluca Rizzello ◽  
Paul Motzki

Abstract Within industrial manufacturing most processing steps are accompanied by transporting and positioning of workpieces. The active interfaces between handling system and workpiece are industrial grippers, which often are driven by pneumatics, especially in small scale areas. On the way to higher energy efficiency and digital factories, companies are looking for new actuation technologies with more sensor integration and better efficiencies. Commonly used actuators like solenoids and electric engines are in many cases too heavy and large for direct integration into the gripping system. Due to their high energy density shape memory alloys (SMA) are suited to overcome those drawbacks of conventional actuators. Additionally, they feature self-sensing abilities that lead to sensor-less monitoring and control of the actuation system. Another drawback of conventional grippers is their design, which is based on moving parts with linear guides and bearings. These parts are prone to wear, especially in abrasive environments. This can be overcome by a compliant gripper design that is based on flexure hinges and thus dispenses with joints, bearings and guides. In the presented work, the development process of a functional prototype for a compliant gripper driven by a bistable SMA actuation unit for industrial applications is outlined. The focus lies on the development of the SMA actuator, while the first design approach for the compliant gripper mechanism with solid state joints is proposed. The result is a working gripper-prototype which is mainly made of 3D-printed parts. First results of validation experiments are discussed.


2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 18-29
Author(s):  
Thanh Diep Cong Tu

In recent years, CPM - Continuous Passive Motion has been proved to be one of the most effective therapeutic methods for patients who have problems with motion such as spinal cord injury, ankle and knee injury, parkinson and so on. Many commercial CPM devices are found in market but all of them use motors as the main actuators. The lack of human compliance of electric actuators, which are commonly used in these machines, makes them potentially harmful to patients. An interesting alternative, to electric actuators for medical purposes, particularly promising for rehabilitation, is a pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) actuator because of its high power/weight ratio and compliance properties. However, the highly nonlinear and hysteresis of PAM make it the challenging for design and control. In this study, a PID compensation using neural network control is studied to improve the control performance of the novel model of Knee CPM device.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (13) ◽  
pp. 6473-6481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherrie Xie ◽  
Alison L. Hill ◽  
Chris R. Rehmann ◽  
Michael Z. Levy

Bed bugs have reemerged in the United States and worldwide over recent decades, presenting a major challenge to both public health practitioners and housing authorities. A number of municipalities have proposed or initiated policies to stem the bed bug epidemic, but little guidance is available to evaluate them. One contentious policy is disclosure, whereby landlords are obligated to notify potential tenants of current or prior bed bug infestations. Aimed to protect tenants from leasing an infested rental unit, disclosure also creates a kind of quarantine, partially and temporarily removing infested units from the market. Here, we develop a mathematical model for the spread of bed bugs in a generalized rental market, calibrate it to parameters of bed bug dispersion and housing turnover, and use it to evaluate the costs and benefits of disclosure policies to landlords. We find disclosure to be an effective control policy to curb infestation prevalence. Over the short term (within 5 years), disclosure policies result in modest increases in cost to landlords, while over the long term, reductions of infestation prevalence lead, on average, to savings. These results are insensitive to different assumptions regarding the prevalence of infestation, rate of introduction of bed bugs from other municipalities, and the strength of the quarantine effect created by disclosure. Beyond its application to bed bugs, our model offers a framework to evaluate policies to curtail the spread of household pests and is appropriate for systems in which spillover effects result in highly nonlinear cost–benefit relationships.


2019 ◽  
Vol 804 ◽  
pp. 59-62
Author(s):  
Min Wei ◽  
Wei Li ◽  
Zhen Qiang Song ◽  
Shijie Zhu

The dielectric elastomer (DE) has the advantages of large deformation ability, fast response speed, low price and high energy density. Therefore, DE has great prospects as artificial muscle and flexible robot. The purpose of the research is to clarify the mechanical behavior for acrylate dielectric elastomer by tensile test, fatigue test and viscoelasticity measurement.


Author(s):  
Garrett Waycaster ◽  
Sai-Kit Wu ◽  
Tad Driver ◽  
Xiangrong Shen

This paper describes the design and control of a compact and flexible pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) actuation system for bio-robotic systems. The entire paper is divided into two parts, with the first part covering the mechanism design and the second part covering the corresponding controller design. This novel system presented in this part incorporates two new features, including a variable-radius pulley based PAM actuation mechanism, and a spring-return mechanism to replace the PAM in the “weak” direction. With the pulley radius as a function of the joint angle, this new feature enables the designer to freely modulate the shape of the torque curve, and thus achieves a significantly higher flexibility than the traditional configuration. The other new feature, the spring-return mechanism, is inspired by the fact that a large number of bio-robotic systems require a significantly larger torque in one direction than the other.


2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (16) ◽  
pp. 4424-4465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hang Luo ◽  
Xuefan Zhou ◽  
Christopher Ellingford ◽  
Yan Zhang ◽  
Sheng Chen ◽  
...  

A detailed overview on interface design and control in polymer based composite dielectrics for energy storage applications.


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