A Study of the Planar Serial-Parallel Mechanism With Various Stiffness for a Biotic Compliant Fish

Author(s):  
Cui Zuo ◽  
Jiang Hong-zhou

Previous biological experiments show that the fish use their muscles to stiffen their bodies for improving the swimming performance. Inspired by that, we propose a planar model of oscillatory propulsor with variable stiffness using hyper redundant serial-parallel mechanisms to mimic a fish. Our goal in the paper is to identify the swimming characteristics with respect to the body stiffness. Moreover, a simulation model is presented and its results show that the swimming performance is largely dependent on the body stiffness and the driven frequency. Our primary conclusions include: 1) when the driven frequency is closed to the design frequency, the robotic fish with the calculated body stiffness has a super swimming performance. 2) Driven at the design frequency, the forward speed of robotic fish is linearly proportional to the driving frequency and the Strouhal number is consistent with the experiment results 0.25<St<0.35.

Author(s):  
S J Zhang ◽  
D J Sanger ◽  
D Howard

A parallel mechanism is one whose links and joints form two or more serially connected chains which join the fixed base and the end effector The mechanism of a multi-legged walking machine can be considered as a parallel mechanism whose base is not fixed and whose configuration changes during different phases of its gait. This paper presents methods for analysing the mechanics of parallel mechanisms and walking machines using vector and screw algebra Firstly, displacement analysis is covered; this includes general methods for deriving the position vector of any joint in any leg and for calculating the active joint displacements in any leg. Secondly, velocity analysis is covered which tackles the problem of calculating active joint velocities given the velocity, position and the orientation of the body and the positions of the feet. Thirdly, the static analysis of these classes of mechanisms using the principle of virtual work and screw algebra is given. Expressions are derived for the actuator forces and torques required to balance a given end effector (or body) wrench and, in the case of a walking machine, the ground reactions at the feet. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the application of these methods.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (23) ◽  
pp. 5525-5533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Kangkang ◽  
Jiang Hongzhou ◽  
He Jingfeng ◽  
Zhang Hui

For redundant planar rotational parallel mechanisms (RPRPM), stiffness consists of active stiffness resulting from internal forces and passive stiffness caused by compliances of flexible elements, and the active stiffness is coupled with the passive stiffness. The stiffness variations with stretching internal force and compressing internal force of flexible elements are analyzed. By combining the leg-crossed RPRPM and leg-uncrossed RPRPM of different leg arrangements, the active stiffness is decoupled from the passive stiffness. The stiffness is modulated by changing the internal force and hence the spring stretching length independently to avoid being influenced by the passive stiffness. The stiffness variation multiple with given spring stretching length is maximized by decoupling the active stiffness from the passive stiffness. The variation of natural frequency of RPRPM is maximized by maximizing the stiffness variation, and the RPRPM can employ vibration of resonance to improve the working performance in a large range of driving frequency.


2022 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Schwab ◽  
Fabian Wiesemüller ◽  
Claudio Mucignat ◽  
Yong-Lae Park ◽  
Ivan Lunati ◽  
...  

Due to the difficulty of manipulating muscle activation in live, freely swimming fish, a thorough examination of the body kinematics, propulsive performance, and muscle activity patterns in fish during undulatory swimming motion has not been conducted. We propose to use soft robotic model animals as experimental platforms to address biomechanics questions and acquire understanding into subcarangiform fish swimming behavior. We extend previous research on a bio-inspired soft robotic fish equipped with two pneumatic actuators and soft strain sensors to investigate swimming performance in undulation frequencies between 0.3 and 0.7 Hz and flow rates ranging from 0 to 20 cms in a recirculating flow tank. We demonstrate the potential of eutectic gallium–indium (eGaIn) sensors to measure the lateral deflection of a robotic fish in real time, a controller that is able to keep a constant undulatory amplitude in varying flow conditions, as well as using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) to characterizing swimming performance across a range of flow speeds and give a qualitative measurement of thrust force exerted by the physical platform without the need of externally attached force sensors. A detailed wake structure was then analyzed with Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) to highlight different wave modes present in the robot’s swimming motion and provide insights into the efficiency of the robotic swimmer. In the future, we anticipate 3D-PIV with DMD serving as a global framework for comparing the performance of diverse bio-inspired swimming robots against a variety of swimming animals.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haitao Liu ◽  
Ke Xu ◽  
Huiping Shen ◽  
Xianlei Shan ◽  
Tingli Yang

Abstract Direct kinematics with analytic solutions is critical to the real-time control of parallel mechanisms. Therefore, the type synthesis of a mechanism having explicit form of forward kinematics has become a topic of interest. Based on this purpose, this paper deals with the type synthesis of 1T2R parallel mechanisms by investigating the topological structure coupling-reducing of the 3UPS&UP parallel mechanism. With the aid of the theory of mechanism topology, the analysis of the topological characteristics of the 3UPS&UP parallel mechanism is presented, which shows that there are highly coupled motions and constraints amongst the limbs of the mechanism. Three methods for structure coupling-reducing of the 3UPS&UP parallel mechanism are proposed, resulting in eight new types of 1T2R parallel mechanisms with one or zero coupling degree. One obtained parallel mechanism is taken as an example to demonstrate that a mechanism with zero coupling degree has an explicit form for forward kinematics. The process of type synthesis is in the order of permutation and combination; therefore, there are no omissions. This method is also applicable to other configurations, and novel topological structures having simple forward kinematics can be obtained from an original mechanism via this method.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fu-Qun Zhao ◽  
Sheng Guo ◽  
Hai-Jun Su ◽  
Hai-Bo Qu ◽  
Ya-Qiong Chen

Abstract As the structures of multiarm robots are serially arranged, the packaging and transportation of these robots are often inconvenient. The ability of these robots to operate objects must also be improved. Addressing this issue, this paper presents a type of multiarm robot that can be adequately folded into a designed area. The robot can achieve different operation modes by combining different arms and objects. First, deployable kinematic chains (DKCs) are designed, which can be folded into a designated area and be used as an arm structure in the multiarm robot mechanism. The strategy of a platform for storing DKCs is proposed. Based on the restrictions in the storage area and the characteristics of parallel mechanisms, a class of DKCs, called base assembly library, is obtained. Subsequently, an assembly method for the synthesis of the multiarm robot mechanism is proposed, which can be formed by the connection of a multiarm robot mechanism with an operation object based on a parallel mechanism structure. The formed parallel mechanism can achieve a reconfigurable characteristic when different DKCs connect to the operation object. Using this method, two types of multiarm robot mechanisms with four DKCs that can switch operation modes to perform different tasks through autonomous combination and release operation is proposed. The obtained mechanisms have observable advantages when compared with the traditional mechanisms, including optimizing the occupied volume during transportation and using parallel mechanism theory to analyze the switching of operation modes.


Author(s):  
Duanling Li ◽  
Pu Jia ◽  
Jiazhou Li ◽  
Dan Zhang ◽  
Xianwen Kong

Abstract The current research of reconfigurable parallel mechanism mainly focuses on the construction of reconfigurable joints. Compared with the method of changing the mobility by physical locking joints, the geometric constraint has good controllability, and the constructed parallel mechanism has more configurations and wider application range. This paper presents a reconfigurable axis (rA) joint inspired and evolved from Rubik's Cubes, which have a unique feature of geometric and physical constraint of axes of joint. The effectiveness of the rA joint in the construction of the limb is analyzed, resulting in a change in mobility and topology of the parallel mechanism. The rA joint makes the angle among the three axes inside the groove changed arbitrarily. This change in mobility is completed by the case illustrated by a 3(rA)P(rA) reconfigurable parallel mechanism having variable mobility from 1 to 6 and having various special configurations including pure translations, pure rotations. The underlying principle of the metamorphosis of this rA joint is shown by investigating the dependence of the corresponding screw system comprising of line vectors, leading to evolution of the rA joint from two types of spherical joints to three types of variable Hooke joints and one revolute joint. The reconfigurable parallel mechanism alters its topology by rotating or locking the axis of rA joint to turn all limbs into different phases. The prototype of reconfigurable parallel mechanism is manufactured and all configurations are enumerated to verify the validity of the theoretical method by physical experiments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 172988142110177
Author(s):  
Jia Yonghao ◽  
Chen Xiulong

For spatial multibody systems, the dynamic equations of multibody systems with compound clearance joints have a high level of nonlinearity. The coupling between different types of clearance joints may lead to abundant dynamic behavior. At present, the dynamic response analysis of the spatial parallel mechanism considering the three-dimensional (3D) compound clearance joint has not been reported. This work proposes a modeling method to investigate the influence of the 3D compound clearance joint on the dynamics characteristics of the spatial parallel mechanism. For this purpose, 3D kinematic models of spherical clearance joint and revolute joint with radial and axial clearances are derived. Contact force is described as normal contact and tangential friction and later introduced into the nonlinear dynamics model, which is established by the Lagrange multiplier technique and Jacobian of constraint matrix. The influences of compound clearance joint and initial misalignment of bearing axes on the system are analyzed. Furthermore, validation of dynamics model is evaluated by ADAMS and Newton–Euler method. This work provides an essential theoretical basis for studying the influences of 3D clearance joints on dynamic responses and nonlinear behavior of parallel mechanisms.


Author(s):  
Yu Zou ◽  
Yuru Zhang

The maximum wrench capabilities of the cable-driven parallel mechanisms are investigated in this paper. Focusing on accuracy and efficiency, two methods, an optimization-based method and a hybrid method based on optimization and geometry, are presented for determining the wrench capability of the cable-driven parallel mechanisms. Both methods are applied to a 6-DOF cable-driven parallel mechanism with eight cables to compute the maximum isotropic force and maximum isotropic moment. Comparison of the two methods is made. The results show that the hybrid method proposed is more accurate and computationally efficient.


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