A Bio-inspired Variable-Stiffness Method Based on Antagonism

Guan, Mingjun; Yan, Yadong; Wang, Yu

doi:10.1109/rcae53607.2021.9638951

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 14 publications

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“…Generally, variable stiffness capability in CRs can be achieved by utilising antagonism mechanisms, phase transition materials, external magnetic fields, and jamming mechanisms [7]- [9]. Antagonism mechanisms realise stiffness variation based on a pair of antagonistic forces, which can be easily achieved in tendondriven or artificial-muscle CRs [10], [11]. Although antagonism mechanisms are simple and easy to implement, their efficiency is relatively low and it needs great extra force or high muscle pressure to form antagonistic force pairs, which would result in heavy mass in actuators, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel Continuum Robot With Stiffness Variation Capability Using Layer Jamming: Design, Modeling, and Validation

Fan

Liu

2022

IEEE Access

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This paper presents a novel continuum robot (OctRobot-I) that has controllable stiffness variation capability in both the transverse and axial directions. Robot design, stiffness variation analysis and experimental testing are discussed in detail. Stiffness models based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory are developed, and then four static deflection cases are analysed. Experiments are conducted with two types of layer jamming sheaths (overlap numbers n = 3, 5) and four different vacuum pressures (0kPa, 25kPa, 50kPa, 75kPa) at three different bending angles (0°, 90°, 180°). The results demonstrate that the stiffness changing tendency is in compliance with the derived models and show that the robot has a good stiffness variable capability. With the jamming sheath of n = 3, the stiffness ranges (ratios) are 36.4 to 241.7 N/m (6.6) and 92.9 to 19.3×10 3 N/m (207.8) in the transverse and axial directions, respectively. With the jamming sheath of n = 5, the stiffness ranges (ratios) are 65.7 to 398.3 N/m (6.1) and 106.7 to 20.8×10 3 N/m (194.9) in the transverse and axial directions, respectively. Additionally, the actuating and gripping experiments demonstrate that this robot has good performance in real-world applications.

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