Earthworm-Like Planar Locomotion Robot Based on Yoshimura-Origami Structure

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiwei Zhang ◽  
Jian Xu ◽  
Hongbin Fang

Abstract Inspired by the biological characteristics of the earthworm and the prominent deformability of origami structure, this research proposes an origami-based earthworm-like robot to achieve effective planar locomotion. Origami is attractive for building earthworm-like robots’ ‘body’ because it can exhibit excellent compliance and reduce the cost of fabrication. In this paper, we choose Yoshimura structure incorporated with hybrid actuators and anchoring mechanisms to construct the robot segment. The Yoshimura structure is composed of multiple layers and each layer is assumed to have uniform deformation. Kinematic analysis indicates that the Yoshimura structure has excellent axial and bending deformability, and the deformability is closely related to the number of layers. To control the axial and bending deformation of the robot segment individually, each segment contains two types of actuators: pneumatic balloon and SMA spring. The balloon is used to actuate the expansion and contraction of the segment, while the SMA spring is used to actuate the bending behavior of the segment. The experiment is performed to verify that the robot can achieve rectilinear and planar locomotion. Our results could lead to the development of origami-based locomotion robots and deepen our understanding of them.

Author(s):  
Soniya ◽  
Sandeep Paul ◽  
Lotika Singh

This paper applies a hybrid evolutionary approach to a convolutional neural network (CNN) and determines the number of layers and filters based on the application and user need. It integrates compact genetic algorithm with stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for simultaneously evolving structure and parameters of the CNN. It defines an effectual string representation for combining structure and parameters of the CNN. The compact genetic algorithm helps in the evolution of network structure by optimizing the number of convolutional layers and number of filters in each convolutional layer. At the same time, an optimal set of weight parameters of the network is obtained using the SGD law. This approach amalgamates exploration in network space by compact genetic algorithm and exploitation in weight space with SGD in an effective manner. The proposed approach also incorporates user-defined parameters in the cost function in an elegant manner which controls the network structure and hence the performance of the network based on the users need. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been demonstrated on four benchmark datasets, namely MNIST, COIL-100, CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100. The obtained results clearly demonstrate the potential of the proposed approach by evolving architectures based on the nature of the application and the need of the user.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (51) ◽  
pp. 39-49
Author(s):  
S. Vijayasimhan Sivapriya ◽  
Shanmugam Ganesh-Kumar

The vertical stress exerted by the vehicles will be high in a populated road and to increase the bearing capacity of subgrade characteristics, geosynthetic material can be used. In the current study different geosynthetic material such as geo-grid, geo-textile and geo-membrane were used to as a subgrade reinforcement member inside the CBR mould for understanding the improvement in subgrade  for single, two and three geosynthetic layering  in the CBR mould. The results show there was a constant increase in the bearing with the increase in a number of layers and this improvement varied with type of geosynthetic materials also. Among three geosynhteic materials, geogrid shows improved CBR characteristics. Finally, Cost analysis and design of flexible pavement were carried for an optimum number of layers for geogrids. There was reduction of about 6.38% in the cost of construction when using geogrid as subgrade reinforcement member. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shan Gao ◽  
Man Xu ◽  
Nan Guo ◽  
Ying Zhang

A glued-laminated timber section with mixed-grade laminae could make an efficient use of material strength and reduce the cost. A 4-point bending test was conducted on a total of 18 specimens to investigate the mechanical properties of glued-laminated timber. Uniform-grade, asymmetrical mixed-grade, and symmetrical mixed-grade patterns were used to assemble the beam sections. The bending stiffness and reliability of the beams were assessed according to the experimental results. The influence of the assembly pattern on the bending behavior of glued-laminated timber was investigated by finite element models. The results show that the assembly pattern of the section has little influence on the failure mode of glued-laminated timber. Relative lower strength in compressive area of the section is beneficial for delaying the occurrence of the first crack on the glued-laminated timber beam. An equation for apparent bending stiffness of glued-laminated timber was proposed, whose results match well with the experimental results. The beam section assembled by the asymmetrical mixed-grade pattern retains the higher level of safety compared to those assembled by uniform-grade and symmetrical mixed-grade patterns. The grade of the second bottom lamina in tensile has little influence on the performance of glued-laminated timber, while lower grade laminae in compressive area of the section would cause a bending stiffness reduction at smaller deflection.


BioResources ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 4217-4233
Author(s):  
Ümmü Karagöz İşleyen ◽  
İrfan Peker

Effects of the number of layers and the number and typology of finger joints were studied relative to the bending behavior of glulam beam made of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) laminates. The investigated parameters of glulam beams with constant overall dimensions (width × depth × length) of 90 mm × 90 mm × 1710 mm were lamination thickness (18 mm or 30 mm), the distance of the finger joints (200, 400, and 600 mm), and finger direction (horizontal and vertical). A total of 14 experimental samples were produced (12 different finger joint beams and two reference beams without finger joints) and tested under four-point bending tests. Taguchi orthogonal experimental design was used to evaluate and optimize test results using the S/N ratio. The effects of main and interactions between producing parameters on strength of glulam beam were determined by variance analysis. According to the results of the analysis, it was determined that the number of layers and the direction of the finger had a significant effect on the flexural strength of the beams, but the finger distance was not significant. Moreover, the highest strength values were obtained in 5-layer finger-jointed beams with vertical finger direction.


Author(s):  
L. -M. Peng ◽  
M. J. Whelan

In recent years there has been a trend in the structure determination of reconstructed surfaces to use high energy electron diffraction techniques, and to employ a kinematic approximation in analyzing the intensities of surface superlattice reflections. Experimentally this is motivated by the great success of the determination of the dimer adatom stacking fault (DAS) structure of the Si(111) 7 × 7 reconstructed surface.While in the case of transmission electron diffraction (TED) the validity of the kinematic approximation has been examined by using multislice calculations for Si and certain incident beam directions, far less has been done in the reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) case. In this paper we aim to provide a thorough Bloch wave analysis of the various diffraction processes involved, and to set criteria on the validity for the kinematic analysis of the intensities of the surface superlattice reflections.The validity of the kinematic analysis, being common to both the TED and RHEED case, relies primarily on two underlying observations, namely (l)the surface superlattice scattering in the selvedge is kinematically dominating, and (2)the superlattice diffracted beams are uncoupled from the fundamental diffracted beams within the bulk.


Author(s):  
James F. Mancuso

IBM PC compatible computers are widely used in microscopy for applications ranging from control to image acquisition and analysis. The choice of IBM-PC based systems over competing computer platforms can be based on technical merit alone or on a number of factors relating to economics, availability of peripherals, management dictum, or simple personal preference.IBM-PC got a strong “head start” by first dominating clerical, document processing and financial applications. The use of these computers spilled into the laboratory where the DOS based IBM-PC replaced mini-computers. Compared to minicomputer, the PC provided a more for cost-effective platform for applications in numerical analysis, engineering and design, instrument control, image acquisition and image processing. In addition, the sitewide use of a common PC platform could reduce the cost of training and support services relative to cases where many different computer platforms were used. This could be especially true for the microscopists who must use computers in both the laboratory and the office.


Author(s):  
H. Rose

The imaging performance of the light optical lens systems has reached such a degree of perfection that nowadays numerical apertures of about 1 can be utilized. Compared to this state of development the objective lenses of electron microscopes are rather poor allowing at most usable apertures somewhat smaller than 10-2 . This severe shortcoming is due to the unavoidable axial chromatic and spherical aberration of rotationally symmetric electron lenses employed so far in all electron microscopes.The resolution of such electron microscopes can only be improved by increasing the accelerating voltage which shortens the electron wave length. Unfortunately, this procedure is rather ineffective because the achievable gain in resolution is only proportional to λ1/4 for a fixed magnetic field strength determined by the magnetic saturation of the pole pieces. Moreover, increasing the acceleration voltage results in deleterious knock-on processes and in extreme difficulties to stabilize the high voltage. Last not least the cost increase exponentially with voltage.


1994 ◽  
Vol 58 (11) ◽  
pp. 832-835 ◽  
Author(s):  
ES Solomon ◽  
TK Hasegawa ◽  
JD Shulman ◽  
PO Walker
Keyword(s):  

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