scholarly journals Design and Analysis of a Tensegrity Mechanism for a Bio-Inspired Robot

Author(s):  
Swaminath Venkateswaran ◽  
Matthieu Furet ◽  
Damien Chablat ◽  
Philippe Wenger

Abstract Piping inspection robots are of greater interests in industries such as nuclear, chemical and sewage. The design of such robots is highly challenging owing to factors such as locomotion inside pipes with varying diameters, cable management, and complex pipe bends (or) junctions. A rigid bio-inspired caterpillar type piping inspection robot was developed at LS2N, France. By introducing tensegrity mechanisms and four-bar wheel mechanisms, the design of this robot is modified into a reconfigurable system. The tensegrity mechanism employs a passive universal joint with three tension springs and three cables for actuation. The positioning of the end effector with respect to the base of the mechanism plays an important role in determining the maximum tilt angle (or) bending limit of the system. By workspace analysis of three case studies, the best solution is chosen which generates the maximum tilt. A static force analysis is then performed on the mechanism to determine its stability under the influences of preload. By the modification of design parameters, stable configurations are determined followed by which cable actuation of mechanism is analyzed for estimating applied forces.

Robotics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Swaminath Venkateswaran ◽  
Damien Chablat ◽  
Frédéric Boyer

Piping inspection robots are of greater importance for industries such as nuclear, chemical and sewage. Mechanisms having closed loop or tree-like structures can be employed in such pipelines owing to their adaptable structures. A bio-inspired caterpillar type piping inspection robot was developed at Laboratoire des Sciences du Numérique de Nantes (LS2N), France. Using DC motors and leg mechanisms, the robot accomplishes the locomotion of a caterpillar in six-steps. With the help of Coulomb’s law of dry friction, a static force model was written and the contact forces between legs of robot and pipeline walls were determined. The actuator forces of the DC motors were then estimated under static phases for horizontal and vertical orientations of the pipeline. Experiments were then conducted on the prototype where the peak results of static force analysis for a given pipe diameter were set as threshold limits to attain static phases inside a test pipeline. The real-time actuator forces were estimated in experiments for similar orientations of the pipeline of static force models and they were found to be higher when compared to the numerical model.


Author(s):  
Ahmad Abdullah ◽  
Zareena Kausar ◽  
Haroon Raza ◽  
Abdullah Siddiqui ◽  
Neelum Yousaf ◽  
...  

Stability plays a vital role in any robotic system. Its significance increases in systems related to health and medicine. For rehabilitation devices meant for Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) patients, stability is crucial and key element in ensuring patient safety and the usefulness of the devices. In this study, kinematics, force analysis, and the static tip-over stability of a device for rehabilitation of paraplegic patients is discussed. Kinematics modeling and static force analysis provide critical information about position and loading at different points on the device. Force-Angle Stability Criterion is used to find the static tip-over stability of the device while the patient is on board the device. The Criterion relies on the support boundary, tip-over mode axes, and the Center of Mass (COM) of the complete system. The Criterion is sensitive to the COM position and therefore is more suitable for the application. The linear actuator mounted on the device causes the end effector of the device to move. The patient, strapped with the end effector, in turn moves from sitting position to standing position. The study focuses on the analysis of stability based on changing COM during this motion. The results verify that although the system is well within the stability bounds, it is more stable as it moves from sitting position to standing position.


2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 341-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Rouhani ◽  
M. J. Nategh

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the workspace and dexterity of a microhexapod which is a 6-degrees of freedom (DOF) parallel compliant manipulator, and also to investigate its dimensional synthesis to maximize the workspace and the global dexterity index at the same time. Microassembly is so essential in the current industry for manufacturing complicated structures. Most of the micromanipulators suffer from their restricted workspace because of using flexure joints compared to the conventional ones. In addition, the controllability of micromanipulators inside the whole workspace is very vital. Thus, it is very important to select the design parameters in a way that not only maximize the workspace but also its global dexterity index. Design/methodology/approach – Microassembly is so essential in the current industry for manufacturing complicated structures. Most of the micromanipulators suffer from their restricted workspace because of using flexure joints compared to the conventional ones. In addition, the controllability of micromanipulators inside the whole workspace is very vital. Thus, it is very important to select the design parameters in a way that not only maximize the workspace but also its global dexterity index. Findings – It has been shown that the proposed procedure for the workspace calculation can considerably speed the required calculations. The optimization results show that a converged-diverged configuration of pods and an increase in the difference between the moving and the stationary platforms’ radii cause the global dexterity index to increase and the workspace to decrease. Originality/value – The proposed algorithm for the workspace analysis is very important, especially when it is an objective function of an optimization problem based on the search method. In addition, using screw theory can simply construct the homogeneous Jacobian matrix. The proposed methodology can be used for any other micromanipulator.


1994 ◽  
Vol 116 (2) ◽  
pp. 614-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong-Xian Xu ◽  
D. Kohli ◽  
Tzu-Chen Weng

A general formulation for the differential kinematics of hybrid-chain manipulators is developed based on transformation matrices. This formulation leads to velocity and acceleration analyses, as well as to the formation of Jacobians for singularity and unstable configuration analyses. A manipulator consisting of n nonsymmetrical subchains with an arbitrary arrangement of actuators in the subchain is called a hybrid-chain manipulator in this paper. The Jacobian of the manipulator (called here the system Jacobian) is a product of two matrices, namely the Jacobian of a leg and a matrix M containing the inverse of a matrix Dk, called the Jacobian of direct kinematics. The system Jacobian is singular when a leg Jacobian is singular; the resulting singularity is called the inverse kinematic singularity and it occurs at the boundary of inverse kinematic solutions. When the Dk matrix is singular, the M matrix and the system Jacobian do not exist. The singularity due to the singularity of the Dk matrix is the direct kinematic singularity and it provides positions where the manipulator as a whole loses at least one degree of freedom. Here the inputs to the manipulator become dependent on each other and are locked. While at these positions, the platform gains at least one degree of freedom, and becomes statically unstable. The system Jacobian may be used in the static force analysis. A stability index, defined in terms of the condition number of the Dk matrix, is proposed for evaluating the proximity of the configuration to the unstable configuration. Several illustrative numerical examples are presented.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domenico Tommasino ◽  
Matteo Bottin ◽  
Giulio Cipriani ◽  
Alberto Doria ◽  
Giulio Rosati

Abstract In robotics the risk of collisions is present both in industrial applications and in remote handling. If a collision occurs, the impact may damage both the robot and external equipment, which may result in successive imprecise robot tasks or line stops, reducing robot efficiency. As a result, appropriate collision avoidance algorithms should be used or, if it is not possible, the robot must be able to react to impacts reducing the contact forces. For this purpose, this paper focuses on the development of a special end-effector that can withstand impacts and is able to protect the robot from impulsive forces. The novel end-effector is based on a bi-stable mechanism that decouples the dynamics of the end-effector from the dynamics of the robot. The intrinsically non-linear behavior of the end-effector is investigated with the aid of numerical simulations. The effect of design parameters and the operating conditions are analyzed and the interaction between the functioning of the bi-stable mechanism and the control system is studied. In particular, the effect of the mechanism in different scenarios characterized by different robot velocities is shown. Results of numerical simulations assess the validity of the proposed end-effector, which can lead to large reductions in impact forces.


1993 ◽  
Vol 115 (4) ◽  
pp. 884-891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeong-Jeong Ou ◽  
Lung-Wen Tsai

This paper presents a methodology for kinematic synthesis of tendon-driven manipulators with isotropic transmission characteristics. The force transmission characteristics, from the end-effector space to the actuator space, has been investigated. It is shown that tendon forces required to act against externally applied forces are functions of the structure matrix, its null vector, and the manipulator Jacobian matrix. Design equations for synthesizing a manipulator to possess isotropic transmission characteristics are derived. It is shown that manipulators which possess isotropic transmission characteristics have much better force distribution among their tendons.


Robotica ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 889-905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chin-Hsing Kuo ◽  
Jian S. Dai ◽  
Giovanni Legnani

SUMMARYA non-overconstrained three-DOF parallel orientation mechanism that is kinematically equivalent to the Agile Eye is presented in this paper. The output link (end-effector) of the mechanism is connected to the base by one spherical joint and by another three identical legs. Each leg comprises of, in turns from base, a revolute joint, a universal joint, and three prismatic joints. The three lower revolute joints are active joints, while all other joints are passive ones. Based on a special configuration, some three projective angles of the end-effector coordinates are fully decoupled with respect to the input actuated joints, that is, by actuating any revolute joint the end-effector rotates in such a way that the corresponding projective angle changes with the same angular displacement. The fully decoupled motion is analyzed geometrically and proved theoretically. Besides, the inverse and direct kinematics solutions of the mechanism are provided based on the geometric reasoning and theoretical proof.


Author(s):  
S El Hraiech ◽  
AH Chebbi ◽  
Z Affi ◽  
L Romdhane

This work deals with the estimation and the sensitivity analysis of the 3-UPU parallel robot error. Based on the Newton–Euler formalism, the robot dynamic model is given in a closed form. This model is validated by the software ADAMS. Using the interval analysis method, a new algorithm is proposed, which estimates the errors in the motion of the end-effector and the errors in the actuator forces as a function of the design parameters uncertainties. The obtained results show that the kinematic errors are minimal at the workspace center. Moreover, these errors increase as the platform moves along the vertical axis. It is also shown that kinematic errors in the actuator joints are the most influential parameters on the manipulator accuracy. Therefore, using actuators with a higher accuracy can highly reduce the errors in motion of the platform.


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