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This paper presents the modeling, characterization and validation for a discrete muscle-like actuator system composed of individual on-off motor units with complex dynamics inherent to the architecture. The dynamics include innate hardening behavior in the actuator with increased length. A series elastic actuator model is used as the plant model for an observer used in feedback control of the actuator. Simulations are performed showing the nonlinear nature of the changing stiffness as well as how this affects the dynamics, clearly observed in the phase portrait. Variable-stiffness hardening behavior is evaluated in experiment and shows good agreement with the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human muscles contrast sharply with traditional robot actuators in that they consist of several motor units, connected in series and parallel, which can be progressively recruited. Some roboticists have explored this idea in robotic actuators, striving for improvements such as the ability to withstand partial damage, inexpensive repeatability by discrete open loop control and the potential of modular actuators. These systems, however, become rather complex or rely on less widely used actuation techniques such as piezo-actuators or SMAs to produce a compact implementation. This paper presents a novel design of a modular redundant actuation unit which can be combined in various combinations to form compliant actuators with varying characteristics. The actuation unit consists of discretely activated solenoids with an integrated compliant coupling. This paper presents the working principle and the physical implementation in detail. Failure of a single motor unit will merely lead to a loss in performance rather than failure of the actuator. Since each motor unit is discrete, neither power electronics nor control requires analog signals. Isometric experiments display the actuation characteristics and demonstrate the repeatability. The platform can be used in future work to further explore the virtues of exploiting discretization and redundancy in muscle-like control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using successive stages, or nesting compliant amplification mechanisms, soft actuators with performance suitable for robotic applications can be constructed with piezoelectric ceramic as the active material. This paper presents a mathematical framework that describes the interactions among the various amplification mechanisms in a hierarchical nested structure. A formal treatment of nested amplification mechanisms results in two theorems that describe the stiffness properties of the whole actuator in terms of the properties of each mechanism in the hierarchy. These theorems show that the stiffness properties of the actuator can be computed by considering only the outermost few layers in the nested configuration. By virtue of this hierarchical structure, the actuator also assumes a cellular structure; it functions by summing the effects of on–off inputs coupled by a flexible connective medium. This requires a paradigm shift when selecting control strategies. A multilayer strain amplification mechanism is designed to meet the required range of travel for a biologically inspired camera positioning mechanism, and a switching control method for the actuator’s 16 on–off inputs is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Piezoelectric stack actuators have the advantages of zero backlash and no acoustic noise, but their stroke is too small to actuate robotic links directly. Because the force available is often more than the required, the stroke of the piezoelectric stack can be amplified by a compliant mechanism at the expense of force. It is not always clear what the geometry of this compliant mechanism should be. Compliant mechanisms have parallels in biology in that they describe two-way interactions between the actuator and the environment. In this paper, we employ the concept of a two-port network model from circuit theory to describe this two-way interaction and present a method to obtain each element of the two-port model as an analytical function of physical geometric parameters for a wide class of geometries. This method makes use of Castigliano’s theorem and Euler–Bernoulli linearly elastic beam theory. To our knowledge, this is the first two-port representation of a compliant mechanism that is based on analytical expressions of geometric parameters. This analytical model agrees well with finite-element method calculations. We also examine a representative case experimentally and achieve accuracies better than 18%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Control system design for flexible robotic systems requires special care with regard to the control system design to prevent oscillation in the system’s resonant modes. If the resonant frequencies of such a system are known, it is possible to determine a switching command that delivers comparable actuation without exciting these natural modes of vibration. If there is redundancy in actuation, it can be exploited to suppress vibration with a reduced amount of actuator changes in state. Minimum switching discrete switching vibration suppression (MSDSVS) involves choosing a switching function with integer amplitudes and continuously variable switch timings to force the root of the residual oscillation function with respect to frequency to be at a resonance. By minimizing the one norm of the vector of amplitudes, we obtain several desired properties. Such a vibration suppression command is developed for a flexible robotic actuator, and experimental results are presented. The proposed command reduces residual oscillation by 73% (rms) and 74% (largest Fourier component) and represents a 37% energy savings over vibration suppression commands that do not exploit the redundancy in actuation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]