Customizing a self-healing soft pump for robot

AbstractRecent advances in soft materials enable robots to possess safer human-machine interaction ways and adaptive motions, yet there remain substantial challenges to develop universal driving power sources that can achieve performance trade-offs between actuation, speed, portability, and reliability in untethered applications. Here, we introduce a class of fully soft electronic pumps that utilize electrical energy to pump liquid through electrons and ions migration mechanism. Soft pumps combine good portability with excellent actuation performances. We develop special functional liquids that merge unique properties of electrically actuation and self-healing function, providing a direction for self-healing fluid power systems. Appearances and pumpabilities of soft pumps could be customized to meet personalized needs of diverse robots. Combined with a homemade miniature high-voltage power converter, two different soft pumps are implanted into robotic fish and vehicle to achieve their untethered motions, illustrating broad potential of soft pumps as universal power sources in untethered soft robotics.

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Investigation and Optimization of Power Based Smart Home Module Integrated with Automatic Solar Tracking System and MPPT Technique

Applied Mechanics and Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.889.526 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 889 ◽

pp. 526-532

Author(s):

Thai Viet Dang ◽

Si Thong Dinh ◽

Xuan Toi Bui

Keyword(s):

Solar Cell ◽

Solar Energy ◽

Power Consumption ◽

Power Systems ◽

Tracking System ◽

Electrical Power ◽

Research Result ◽

Electrical Energy ◽

Cell System ◽

Power Sources

Currently, the world has a lot of research and practical application of intelligent building systems integrated with intelligent power systems. Because Vietnam is a country with potential for solar energy, the integrator of solar energy is being strongly developed. However, the research result of the optimization of electrical energy used by the intelligent type solar integration is rare. This paper presents the design and structure of the module of intelligent control and monitoring via wireless network integrated with the automatic solar concentration system. The system allows easy connection and operation of all electrical power sources including the dispersal solar power to ensure the efficient and lower power consumption. In addition, the solar cell system is applied the Maximum Power Point Tracking technique (MPPT), which helps to stabilize and improve the power generation efficiency of the PV panels. The test results on the module showed absorption performance of automatic solar-cell flat plate systems is raised by 20-30% and power consumption in small households reduced approximately 30%.

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Exploiting Time Scale Separation for Efficient Real-Time Optimization of Integrated Shipboard Power Systems

ASME 2008 Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, Parts A and B ◽

10.1115/dscc2008-2178 ◽

2008 ◽

Author(s):

Gayathri Seenumani ◽

Jing Sun ◽

Huei Peng

Keyword(s):

Power Systems ◽

Real Time ◽

Computational Efficiency ◽

Time Scale ◽

Trajectory Optimization ◽

Scale Separation ◽

Power Sources ◽

Shipboard Power Systems ◽

Time Scale Separation ◽

Trade Offs

Ship-board integrated power systems (IPS) play a crucial role in the all-electric ships (AES) initiative, where the power generation, conversion and distribution are done on a common electric platform. Along with many advantages of the IPS, its inter-connectivity presents a major opportunity as well a challenge for reconfiguration control. To ensure overall optimal performance while sustaining the critical ship service loads, the reconfiguration problem can be formulated as a trajectory optimization problem with the inputs to power sources as optimization variables. The high dimensional and nonlinear nature, along with the extended time horizon involved, makes many grid and gradient based methodologies infeasible for this application, especially when real-time requirements are considered. This paper, motivated by the IPS reconfiguration control, proposes strategies for improving the real-time computational efficiency of the IPS optimization by leveraging the time scale separation of its dynamics. The trade-offs between the computational efficiency and optimization accuracy are analyzed and a numerical example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

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