Kinematics of a Generalized Class of Pneumatic Artificial Muscles

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Girish Krishnan ◽  
Joshua Bishop-Moser ◽  
Charles Kim ◽  
Sridhar Kota
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effective ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Artificial Muscles ◽  
Deformation Pattern ◽  
Structural Members ◽  
Element Analysis ◽  
Pneumatic Artificial Muscles ◽  
Deformation Kinematics ◽  
General Deformation ◽  
Narrow Class

Fluid filled fiber reinforced elastomeric enclosures (FREEs) have been a popular choice for actuators in prosthetics and soft robots owing to their high power density and cost effective manufacturing. While a narrow class of FREEs known as McKibben's actuators have been extensively studied, there is a wide unexplored class that could be potentially used as actuators and soft structural members. This paper analyzes the mobility of generalized FREEs based on simple geometric relationships that result from the inextensibility of fibers and fluidic actuation. The analysis conducted can be classified into instantaneous kinematics and global or large deformation kinematics. Instantaneous kinematics reveals that the most general deformation pattern of the FREE is a screw motion about the axis of its cylinder, whose pitch is a function of fiber orientations. Furthermore, a set of fiber angles, which do not deform under volumetric actuation were identified as the locked manifold (LM). Global kinematic analysis revealed that every FREE continued to deform until its fiber configuration approached the LM. These insights were corroborated with finite element analysis (FEA) and testing for a small sample of FREE actuators.

Fatigue life testing of swaged pneumatic artificial muscles as actuators for aerospace applications

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin KS Woods ◽  
Michael F Gentry ◽  
Curt S Kothera ◽  
Norman M Wereley
Keyword(s):  
Fatigue Testing ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Tensile Failure ◽  
Artificial Muscles ◽  
Stress Concentrations ◽  
Element Analysis ◽  
Performance Improvements ◽  
Aerospace Applications ◽  
Pneumatic Artificial Muscles ◽  
Weight Penalty

Pneumatic artificial muscles are a class of pneumatically driven actuators that are remarkable for their simplicity, lightweight, and excellent performance. These actuators are essentially a tubular bladder surrounded by a braided sleeve and sealed at both ends. Pressurization of the actuators generates contraction and tensile forces. Pneumatic artificial muscles have traditionally been used for robotics applications, but there has been recent interest in adapting them to a variety of aerospace actuation applications where their large stroke and force, which are realized at minimal weight penalty, create potential performance improvements over traditional technologies. However, an impediment to wide-spread acceptance of pneumatic artificial muscles is the relatively short fatigue lives of the actuators reported in the literature (typically, less than 18,000 actuation cycles before damage occurs). The purpose of this study is to develop a new construction method designed to greatly increase the number of fatigue cycles before damage occurs. The fabrication methodology employs a swaging process to provide smooth and distributed clamping of the bladder and braided sleeve components onto the end fittings. This approach minimizes stress concentrations and provides high mechanical strength, which can be experimentally validated via testing for the ultimate tensile failure load. Finite element analysis was used to refine the design of the swaged end fittings before extensive fatigue testing began. Long-term fatigue testing of the actuators under realistic operating conditions showed a substantial increase in actuator life, from a maximum of less than 18,000 cycles in previous research studies to more than 120,000,000 cycles in this study.

Parallel Computing for Tire Simulations

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Surendranath ◽  
M. Dunbar
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Turnaround Time ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Rolling Contact ◽  
Element Analysis ◽  
Parallel Solvers ◽  
Design Changes ◽  
Highly Nonlinear

Abstract Over the last few decades, finite element analysis has become an integral part of the overall tire design process. Engineers need to perform a number of different simulations to evaluate new designs and study the effect of proposed design changes. However, tires pose formidable simulation challenges due to the presence of highly nonlinear rubber compounds, embedded reinforcements, complex tread geometries, rolling contact, and large deformations. Accurate simulation requires careful consideration of these factors, resulting in the extensive turnaround time, often times prolonging the design cycle. Therefore, it is extremely critical to explore means to reduce the turnaround time while producing reliable results. Compute clusters have recently become a cost effective means to perform high performance computing (HPC). Distributed memory parallel solvers designed to take advantage of compute clusters have become increasingly popular. In this paper, we examine the use of HPC for various tire simulations and demonstrate how it can significantly reduce simulation turnaround time. Abaqus/Standard is used for routine tire simulations like footprint and steady state rolling. Abaqus/Explicit is used for transient rolling and hydroplaning simulations. The run times and scaling data corresponding to models of various sizes and complexity are presented.

scholarly journals An extended state observer-based full-order sliding mode control for robotic joint actuated by antagonistic pneumatic artificial muscles

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 172988142098603
Author(s):  
Daoxiong Gong ◽  
Mengyao Pei ◽  
Rui He ◽  
Jianjun Yu
Keyword(s):  
Sliding Mode Control ◽  
Sliding Mode ◽  
State Observer ◽  
Extended State Observer ◽  
Artificial Muscles ◽  
Extended State ◽  
Robot System ◽  
Mode Control ◽  
Physical Experiments ◽  
Pneumatic Artificial Muscles

Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) are expected to play an important role in endowing the advanced robot with the compliant manipulation, which is very important for a robot to coexist and cooperate with humans. However, the strong nonlinear characteristics of PAMs hinder its wide application in robots, and therefore, advanced control algorithms are urgently needed for making the best use of the advantages and bypassing the disadvantages of PAMs. In this article, we propose a full-order sliding mode control extended state observer (fSMC-ESO) algorithm that combines the ESO and the fSMC for a robotic joint actuated by a pair of antagonistic PAMs. The fSMC is employed to eliminate the chattering and to guarantee the finite-time convergence, and the ESO is adopted to observe both the total disturbance and the states of the robot system, so that we can inhibit the disturbance and compensate the nonlinearity efficiently. Both simulations and physical experiments are conducted to validate the proposed method. We suggest that the proposed method can be applied to the robotic systems actuated by PAMs and remarkably improve the performance of the robot system.

scholarly journals Muscle-fiber array inspired, multiple-mode, pneumatic artificial muscles through planar design and one-step rolling fabrication

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiang Zou ◽  
Miao Feng ◽  
Ningyuan Ding ◽  
Peinan Yan ◽  
Haipeng Xu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Muscle Fiber ◽  
Artificial Muscles ◽  
Fiber Array ◽  
Fiber Arrays ◽  
Multiple Mode ◽  
Pneumatic Artificial Muscles ◽  
Pipe Line ◽  
One Step ◽  
Robotic Applications ◽  
Compliant Electrodes

Abstract Although the advances in artificial muscles enable creating soft robots with biological dexterity and self-adaption in unstructured environments, producing scalable artificial muscles with multiple-mode actuations is still elusive. Inspired by muscle-fiber arrays in muscular hydrostats, we present a class of versatile artificial muscles, called MAIPAMs (Muscle-fiber Array Inspired Pneumatic Artificial Muscles), capable of multiple-mode actuations (such as parallel elongation-bending-spiraling actuations, parallel 10 bending actuations, and cascaded elongation-bending-spiraling actuations). Our MAIPAMs mainly consist of active 3D elastomer-balloon arrays reinforced by a passive elastomer membrane, which is achieved through a planar design and one-step rolling fabrication approach. We introduce the prototypical designs of MAIPAMs and demonstrate their muscle-mimic structures and versatility, as well as their scalable ability to integrate flexible while un-stretchable layers for contraction and twisting actuations and compliant electrodes for self-sensing. We further demonstrate that this class of artificial muscles shows promising potentials for versatile robotic applications, such as carrying a camera for recording videos, gripping and manipulating objects, and climbing a pipe-line.

Probabilistic finite element analysis in heat transfer to a nuclear fuel rod bumper support

2004 ◽  
Vol 218 (12) ◽  
pp. 1499-1505
Author(s):  
Rama Subba Reddy Gorla
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Finite Element ◽  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Distribution Functions ◽  
Cumulative Distribution ◽  
Element Analysis ◽  
Transfer Rates ◽  
Fuel Rod ◽  
Design Variables

Heat transfer from a nuclear fuel rod bumper support was computationally simulated by a finite element method and probabilistically evaluated in view of the several uncertainties in the performance parameters. Cumulative distribution functions and sensitivity factors were computed for overall heat transfer rates due to the thermodynamic random variables. These results can be used to identify quickly the most critical design variables in order to optimize the design and to make it cost effective. The analysis leads to the selection of the appropriate measurements to be used in heat transfer and to the identification of both the most critical measurements and the parameters.

Variable recruitment in bundles of miniature pneumatic artificial muscles

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 056014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvie A DeLaHunt ◽  
Thomas E Pillsbury ◽  
Norman M Wereley
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Muscles ◽  
Pneumatic Artificial Muscles ◽  
Variable Recruitment

Experimental Validation of Nominal Model Characteristics for Pneumatic Muscle Actuator

2013 ◽  
Vol 460 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Hošovský ◽  
Kamil Židek
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Nonlinear Differential Equations ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Weight Ratio ◽  
Open Loop ◽  
Artificial Muscles ◽  
Pneumatic Actuators ◽  
Intelligent Control System ◽  
Pneumatic Artificial Muscles ◽  
The One

Pneumatic artificial muscles belong to a category of nonconventional pneumatic actuators that are distinctive for their high power/weight ratio, simple construction and low price and maintenance costs. As such, pneumatic artificial muscles represent an alternative type of pneumatic actuator that could replace the traditional ones in certain applications. Due to their specific construction, PAM-based systems have nonlinear characteristics which make it more difficult to design a control system with good performance. In the paper, a gray-box model (basically analytical but with certain experimental parts) of the one degree-of-freedom PAM-based actuator is derived. This model interconnects the description of pneumatic and mechanical part of the system through a set of several nonlinear differential equations and its main purpose is the design of intelligent control system in simulation environment. The model is validated in both open-loop and closed-loop mode using the measurements on real plant and the results confirm that model performance is in good agreement with the performance of real actuator.

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