TY - GEN
T1 - A distributed and scalable electromechanical actuator for bio-inspired robots
AU - Ku, Bonhyun
AU - Tian, Yanpei
AU - Wang, Sunyu
AU - Libbos, Elie
AU - Agrawal, Shivang
AU - Banerjee, Arijit
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Prof. Peter W. Sauer, the UIUC Power Affiliates Program, the Helm Fund, and the Kwanjeong Educational Foundation for supporting this project.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IEEE.
PY - 2019/5
Y1 - 2019/5
N2 - Bio-inspired robots require agility, low transportation cost, and ability to operate in an unstructured environment. Although existing robots exhibit wide ranges of motion, their performance is limited by actuators. Often the robot design involves adapting a conventional motor with appropriate gears, linkages, and joints to execute high-level motion planning. The procedure leads to complex mechanical designs, low actuation speed, and poor backdrivability. This paper proposes an approach to create a modular and scalable electromechanical actuator that trades off force with allowable displacement. The stacked-actuator structure allows the whole system to share the magnetic flux path. This configuration simplifies mechanical design and assembly while improving thermal management. Stacking several actuators enables a distributed actuation mechanism suitable for creating limited-displacement motions, as in an animal spine. Analytical modeling and design, finite element analysis based simulation, and experimental results of the stacked architecture validate its feasibility to reproduce animal-like motions.
AB - Bio-inspired robots require agility, low transportation cost, and ability to operate in an unstructured environment. Although existing robots exhibit wide ranges of motion, their performance is limited by actuators. Often the robot design involves adapting a conventional motor with appropriate gears, linkages, and joints to execute high-level motion planning. The procedure leads to complex mechanical designs, low actuation speed, and poor backdrivability. This paper proposes an approach to create a modular and scalable electromechanical actuator that trades off force with allowable displacement. The stacked-actuator structure allows the whole system to share the magnetic flux path. This configuration simplifies mechanical design and assembly while improving thermal management. Stacking several actuators enables a distributed actuation mechanism suitable for creating limited-displacement motions, as in an animal spine. Analytical modeling and design, finite element analysis based simulation, and experimental results of the stacked architecture validate its feasibility to reproduce animal-like motions.
KW - Active spine
KW - Distributed actuation
KW - Robotic actuator
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85070941717&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85070941717&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/IEMDC.2019.8785363
DO - 10.1109/IEMDC.2019.8785363
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85070941717
T3 - 2019 IEEE International Electric Machines and Drives Conference, IEMDC 2019
SP - 2180
EP - 2187
BT - 2019 IEEE International Electric Machines and Drives Conference, IEMDC 2019
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 11th IEEE International Electric Machines and Drives Conference, IEMDC 2019
Y2 - 12 May 2019 through 15 May 2019
ER -