A new actuation approach for bio-inspired human-friendly robots

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract
The increasing demand for physical interaction between humans and robots has led to an interest in robots whose behavior is guaranteed to be safe when they are in close proximity with humans. However, attaining sufficiently high levels of performance while ensuring safety creates formidable challenges in mechanical design, actuation, sensing, and control. To promote safety without compromising performance, a new actuation concept, referred to as hybrid actuation, has been developed. Since low impedance output at high frequencies is essential for robot safety, while optimal passive stiffness is needed for robot performance, the new actuation approach employs a pneumatic artificial muscle as a macro actuator to provide low-frequency torques. Artificial pneumatic muscles provide high force-to-weight ratio and inherent compliance, both of which allow for low impedance actuation. To compensate for the slow and non-linear dynamics of pneumatic actuation, a small electromagnetic actuator collocated at the robot's joint is employed as a mini actuator, which provides high mechanical bandwidth for high performance without increasing the inertia and size of the manipulator. To achieve the appropriate balance between safety and performance, design methodologies were developed that optimally determine key design parameters such as the required mini motor torque capacity, the joint stiffness introduced by an antagonistic pair of muscles, and the pulley radius. Using a testbed, referred to as the Stanford Safety Robot (S2rho), the hybrid actuation was evaluated for position tracking performance, force tracking performance, and impact behavior. The experimental results demonstrate that by significantly improving control performance with the hybrid actuation over performance with pneumatic muscles alone, while reducing the effective inertia significantly, the competing design objectives of safety and performance can be successfully integrated into a single robotic manipulator. As an extension of the hybrid actuation concept, the new design of dual four-degree-of-freedom robotic arms with torso is presented and detailed descriptions of the design are included.

Description

Type of resource text
Form electronic; electronic resource; remote
Extent 1 online resource.
Publication date 2011
Issuance monographic
Language English

Creators/Contributors

Associated with Shin, Dong Jun
Associated with Stanford University, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Primary advisor Cutkosky, Mark R
Primary advisor Khatib, Oussama
Thesis advisor Cutkosky, Mark R
Thesis advisor Khatib, Oussama
Thesis advisor Roth, Bernard
Advisor Roth, Bernard

Subjects

Genre Theses

Bibliographic information

Statement of responsibility Dongjun Shin.
Note Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Thesis Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2011.
Location electronic resource

Access conditions

Copyright
© 2011 by Dong Jun Shin
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

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