A novel selective compliant actuator

PurposeThe generic design environment for a flexible printed‐circuit board assemblies (PCBA) remanufacturing cell contains four interrelated complex design domains. Mechanical design domains are really complex and the use of well‐proven mechanical product design methodologies does not help the designer. Hence, this paper aims to develop a generic systematic design methodology for a flexible PCBA remanufacturing cell.Design/methodology/approachThe study investigates the use of conventional mechanical product design techniques for the design of a flexible PCBA rework (remanufacturing) cell. It indicates problems and the weaknesses when conventional product design techniques are used for the development of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS). It then provides a new systematic mechanical design methodology for designing a flexible PCBA rework (remanufacturing) cell. The design methodology is intended to be generic in order to apply successfully to any FMS design.FindingsConventional product design methodology cannot be used directly for the design of a flexible PCBA remanufacturing cell. Hence, two design methodologies were developed: the generic FMS mechanical design methodology and a specific FMS design methodology for a PCBA rework cell. The first one was developed based on the tasks of the conventional product design process integrated with new design tools. The generic design methodology was then extended to obtain the second methodology for a PCBA rework cell design. Both of the methodologies were applied to a flexible PCBA rework cell design problem. Both design methodologies eliminated unusable design solutions at the early design stages of the conceptual design process and made the design process easier.Practical implicationsThe generic and specific design methodologies provide a better design environment, even for less specialized FMS designers.Originality/valueThe design methodologies may help for the commercialization of a flexible PCBA remanufacturing cell that may be used for SM rework and assembly.

An external occulter for starlight suppression – a starshade – flying in formation with the Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission Concept (HabEx) space telescope could enable the direct imaging and spectrographic characterization of Earthlike exoplanets in the habitable zone. This starshade is flown between the telescope and the star, and suppresses stellar light sufficiently to allow the imaging of the faint reflected light of the planet. This paper presents a mechanical architecture for this occulter, which must stow in a 5 m-diameter launch fairing and then deploy to about a 80 m-diameter structure. The optical performance of the starshade requires that the edge profile is accurate and stable. The stowage and deployment of the starshade to meet these requirements present unique challenges that are addressed in this proposed architecture. The mechanical architecture consists of a number of petals attached to a deployable perimeter truss, which is connected to central hub using tensioned spokes. The petals are furled around the stowed perimeter truss for launch. Herein is described a mechanical design solution that supports an 80 m-class starshade for flight as part of HabEx.

As for the complex operational tasks in the unstructured environment with narrow workspace and numerous obstacles, the traditional robots cannot accomplish these mentioned complex operational tasks and meet the dexterity demands. The hyper-redundant bionic robots can complete complex tasks in the unstructured environments by simulating the motion characteristics of the elephant’s trunk and octopus tentacles. Compared with traditional robots, the hyper-redundant bionic robots can accomplish complex tasks because of their flexible structure. A hyper-redundant elephant’s trunk robot (HRETR) with an open structure is developed in this paper. The content includes mechanical structure design, kinematic analysis, virtual prototype simulation, control system design, and prototype building. This design is inspired by the flexible motion of an elephant’s trunk, which is expansible and is composed of six unit modules, namely, 3UPS-PS parallel in series. First, the mechanical design of the HRETR is completed according to the motion characteristics of an elephant’s trunk and based on the principle of mechanical bionic design. After that, the backbone mode method is used to establish the kinematic model of the robot. The simulation software SolidWorks and ADAMS are combined to analyze the kinematic characteristics when the trajectory of the end moving platform of the robot is assigned. With the help of ANSYS, the static stiffness of each component and the whole robot is analyzed. On this basis, the materials of the weak parts of the mechanical structure and the hardware are selected reasonably. Next, the extensible structures of software and hardware control system are constructed according to the modular and hierarchical design criteria. Finally, the prototype is built and its performance is tested. The proposed research provides a method for the design and development for the hyper-redundant bionic robot.

This work report the electronic and mechanical for a bipedal robot prototype. The objective of this project is build a platform to study the dynamic walking and to prove some intelligent control techniques. This work highlighted the fact that mechanical design is equally, if not more important, than the control method used. All the electronic was implemented in a low cost PIC16F873 microcontroller. The robot designed has 9 degree of freedom (DOF) and each joint is driven by a DC servo motor. A gait program besides a control algorithm who read a gyroscope and force sensors are used to equilibrate the robot at walking.

Traditional mechanical design process faces three major challenges: (1) the need for rapid and repeated numerous time-consuming simulations, such as finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics; (2) the need for dataset management; (3) the lack of an integrated and easy-to-use collaborative mechanical design environment. This paper presents a grid-enabled solution for mechanical engineering design, which integrates three traditional design phases (preliminary design, structure verification, and performance evaluation) into one workflow, utilizing grid resources for calculations. This solution aims to accelerate each phase in design process, accommodate more models, and prevent the best results being discarded during the early design stages as it may happen in the conventional design procedures. The applicability of this solutions shown by a case study.

With the aim of reproducing the grasping and manipulation capabilities of humans, many robotic devices have been developed all over the world in more than 50 years of research, starting from very simple grippers, normally used in industrial activities, to very complex anthropomorphic robotic hands. Unfortunately, the reduced functionality and/or reliability of the devices developed so far prevent, together with the cost, their usability in unstructured environments, and in particular in human everyday activities. The adoption of design solutions inherited from conventional mechanics and the lack of purposely developed sensors and actuators are among the main causes of the partial fail in achieving the final goal of reproducing human manipulation capabilities. Our research activity aims at developing innovative solutions concerning the mechanical design, the sensory equipment and the actuation system for the implementation of anthropomorphic robotic hands with improved reliability, functionality and reduced complexity and cost, considering also aspects related to safety during human–robot interaction, paving the way toward the next generation of robotic hands.KeywordsAngular DisplacementTriangular ElementInnovative TechnologyTactile SensorFuse Deposition ModelingThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The design process and the modelling possibility in the conceptual design stage are discussed. Two different approaches are proposed in mechanical design: axiomatic and AI. The axiomatic approach is used to seek basic principles (or laws) for decision making in each stage of the design, while the AI technique allows modelling of the intuitive knowledge and experiences which expert designers use in a well-defined domain. In order to truly help designers, the most effective strategy for elaborating powerful computer-aided design system is to combine these two types of approach.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

This study focuses on the design of intelligent equipment for efficient operation in unstructured environments, concentrating on the construction and performance validation of a “mechanical execution-intelligent control” collaborative system. It emphasizes embedded control, sensor integration, and multi-scenario data-driven performance optimization solutions. First, an intelligent control system centered on embedded control is designed, comprising: - A long-range remote control module (utilizing MC6C/MC7RB communication units based on the 2.4GHz ISM band, enabling interference-resistant command transmission and status feedback over 800 meters) - An identification spotlight module (integrating the K210 visual recognition module, performing typical target detection via CNN Accelerator, and featuring high-efficiency LED lighting for auxiliary perception) and a scanning ranging module (utilizing the N10 LiDAR for 360° two-dimensional scanning based on TOF principles, with a 20,000 measurements/second frequency ensuring ±3cm accuracy in environmental data acquisition). All modules form a “perception-decision-execution” data closed-loop via standardized communication protocols. Second, hardware-intelligent control adaptation design was completed. This involved optimizing power unit hardware interfaces (drive adaptation between brushless DC motors and duct structures), modular partitioning of the control cabin (embedded layout integrating SLAM LiDAR and vision modules), and quick-release connection structures. These provide stable physical carriers for intelligent modules, ensuring efficient command execution. Finally, multi-scenario physical testing and data validation were conducted. Data from various operating conditions—collected via infrared speed measurement, GPS positioning, and attitude sensors—was used to calibrate metrics including water resistance, speed, and steering performance. This validated the intelligent modules' data transmission stability, environmental prediction safety, and system coordination adaptability, proving the equipment meets rapid deployment requirements in complex environments.

Design methods support the derivation of alternative design solutions, and based on product requirements, it provides a platform for the evaluation and selection of appropriate solutions. Because of the driving needs of design and manufacturing industries and also the quest to remain competitive, several design methodologies aimed at addressing aspects of industrial requirements have emerged. This study identifies current best practice design methodologies and their performance when compared with current trends in design and manufacturing. Based on the review, the strengths and weaknesses of current methods are highlighted and used as the platform to support the recommendation for an integrated design and manufacturing methodology. The integrated design and manufacturing methodology rest on the strengths of product design, cost engineering, enterprise and process simulation modelling techniques. This method can help in the (re)design and (re)engineering of products and processes for better cost indications; help determine appropriate manufacturing paradigms; perform virtual experiments to understand implication of production volume changes on designs and flexibility needs in production systems.

This paper presents the design, modeling and control of a compact wrist, which can work in active mode with position or torque control, or passive mode with interactive force compensation. This characteristic makes it suitable for dexterous manipulation in unstructured environments, such as door opening. Mechanism design is presented briefly, and forward, inverse as well as differential kinematics are derived to map the motions and velocities between the task space and joint space. A distributed robust adaptive controller is developed for tracking control of the wrist in active mode; and a new interactive force compensation technique is proposed on the basis of force sensor measurement, which enables passive working mode of the compact wrist. A DSP based control system is developed to test the developed control methods. A prototype has been fabricated and some preliminary experiments have been conducted to validate the proposed design and to verify the developed algorithms.

Integrated Mechanical Design and Modelling of a New Mobile Robot 1

In the age of highly integrated system LSIs, the problem of design methodologies with short time-to-market and higher re-programmability after the chip fabrications has acquired great importance. Although a pure FPGA system is one of the solutions, it cannot give sufficient performance in many real-time applications due to its lower performance and higher power dissipation compared to ASICs. Instead, a hardware/software co-design approach can give best design solutions in terms of such design criteria. In this paper, we introduce a new VLSI architecture called Field Modifiable Architecture (FMA) and its design methodology. Experimental results confirm that our architecture can achieve significant performance improvement in terms of execution cycles.

Robotics has been a paradigm for science in the last few decades. At first, scientists’ efforts were devoted to the solution of the problem of planning and control of themotion of robot manipulators. However, the motion control of robot manipulators in unstructured environments is today an attractive scientific problem. An interesting solution for motion control is the use of sensor information, such as computer vision, in the system’s feedback. Several works and tools have been developed in recent years in this field (Corke; 2005), (Chaumette and Hutchinson; 2006). The more typical approaches consider visual perception for servoing and for the so called look and move (Hutchinson et al.; 1996). Visual servoing (Kelly et al.; 2000) can be classified into two approaches: camera-in-hand or camera-to-hand (Flandin et al.; 2000). In camera-to-hand robotic systems, multiple cameras or a single camera fixed in the worldcoordinate frame capture images of both, the robot and its environment. The tracking of the object with visual feedback can be made in 2D or 3D. An interesting solution for the visual servoing of camera-in hand robot manipulators in 2D can be found in e. g. (Bonfe et al.; 2002) and (Hernandez et al.; 2008) where stability demonstration of a decoupled controller have been presented. For 3D tracking some solutions reported are look and move controller, with one camera (Sim et al.; 2002) or more than one camera (Xie et al.; 2005). A 3D visual servoing with stability analysis in continuous time is presented by (Hernandez et al.; 2008a) and (Kelly et al.; 2006) present a direct visual servoing with transpose Jacobian control technique for regulation of robot manipulators in the 3D Cartesian space. In a similar vein (Enescu et al.; 2006) present mobile robot navigation for person tracking using a stereo head-camera. In this chapter, we consider the control problem of camera-in-hand robot manipulators in 2D and 3D. In both cases only one camera is mounted on the robot’s arm, which supplies visual information of the environment, with the aim of moving the manipulator by maintaining the image of the tracked object (a sphere) in the centre of the image plane, despite the possible movements of the object. In the 3D control the constant radius is used as a feature too. In this work, the proposed control system considers two loops in cascade, an internal loop solving the robots’ joint control, and an external loop implementing a dynamic look and move visual controller. A stability analysis in discrete time is developed under the conditions that it is possible to approximate the dynamic effect of the internal loop as an external loop time delay (Corke; 1996) and (Bonfe et al.; 2002). The more classic presentations of servovisual control are velocity controllers, based in the term feature Jacobian,(Chaumette and Hutchinson; 2006) 2

One of the challenges in the research of axion-like particles and ultimately in the exploration of the physics beyond the standard model is the high magnetic field required in large volume detectors. For the MAgnetized Disk and Mirror AXion experiment (MADMAX), a 9 T NbTi block dipole magnet, 5.9 m in length with a bore diameter of 1.35 m, is required to detect axions with masses in the range of 100 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">μ</i> eV. Such large dimensions and demanding performances led to unconventional solutions for the magnet design. In this article, the updated magnetic and mechanical design are reported. Starting from the updated physics requirements, the article introduces the modifications adopted respect to the conceptual magnetic design and the impact of using cables-in-conduits. The magnetic and mechanical designs are described hereafter, showing the latest results in terms of optimization of the magnetic field peak, conductor cost, mechanical constraints, and overall mass reduction.

Special Issue on Focused Areas and Future Trends of Bio-Inspired Robots “Analysis, Control, and Design for Bio-Inspired Robotics”