The Thumb of the Anthropomorphic Awiwi Hand: From Concept to Evaluation

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (03) ◽  
pp. 1450019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxime Chalon ◽  
Alexander Dietrich ◽  
Markus Grebenstein

The impressive manipulation capabilities of the human hand are undoubtedly related to the thumb opposition. Such a versatility is highly desirable in the context of humanoid robots, in particular when performing object manipulation. In the present case, a robotic hand with size, forces, velocity, and shape comparable to the human one, is envisioned. Unlike most robotic designs — where the fingers are modular and the thumb is simply a finger placed in opposition — the thumb benefits from an intensive functional analysis. This paper details the design method of the thumb of the Awiwi hand, the hand of the Integrated Hand Arm System project of DLR. First, several guidelines are presented that are fused and, with the help of a novel optimization method, lead to the final design. Finally, the design is evaluated by the means of biomedical tests on the realized hardware.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jalal Javadi Moghaddam ◽  
Davood Momeni ◽  
Ghasem Zarei

Purpose This research presents a design method for designing greenhouse structures based on topology optimization. Moreover, the structural design of a gothic greenhouse is proposed in which its structural strength has been improved by using this proposed method. In this method, the design of the structure is done mathematically; therefore, in the design process, more attention can be focused on the constraint space and boundary conditions. It was also shown how the static reliability and fatigue coefficients will change as a result of the design of the greenhouse structure with this method. Another purpose of this study is to find the weakest part of the greenhouse structure against lateral winds and other general loads on the greenhouse structure. Design/methodology/approach In the proposed method, the outer surface and the allowable volume as a constraint domain were considered. The desired loads can be located on the constraint domain. The topology optimization was used to minimize the mass and structural compliance as the objective function. The obtained volume was modified for simplifying the construction. The changes in the shape of the greenhouse structure were investigated by choosing three different penalty numbers for the topology optimization algorithm. The final design of the proposed structure was performed based on the total simultaneous critical loads on the structure. The results of the proposed method were compared in the order of different volume fractions. This showed that the volume fraction approach can significantly reduce the weight of the structure while maintaining its strength and stability. Findings Topology optimization results showed different strut and chords composition because of the changes in maximum mass limit and volume fraction. The results showed that the fatigue was more hazardous, and it decreased the strength of structure nearly three times more than a static analysis. Further, it was noticed that how the penalty numbers can affect topology optimization results. An optimal design based on topology optimization results was presented to improve the proposed greenhouse design against destruction and demolition. Furthermore, this study shows the most sensitive part of the greenhouse against the standard loads of wind, snow, and crop. Originality/value The obtained designs were compared with a conventional arch greenhouse, and then the structural performances were shown based on standard loads. The results showed that in designing the proposed structure, the optimized changes increased the structure strength against the standard loads compared to a simple arch greenhouse. Moreover, the stress safety factor and fatigue safety factor because of different designs of this structure were also compared with each other.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 168781402110349
Author(s):  
Huiqiang Guo ◽  
Mingzhe Li ◽  
Pengfei Sun ◽  
Changfeng Zhao ◽  
Wenjie Zuo ◽  
...  

Rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widespread in both the military and civilian applications. However, there are still some problems for the UAV design such as the long design period, high manufacturing cost, and difficulty in maintenance. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel design method to obtain a lightweight and maintainable UAV frame from configurable design to detailed design. First, configurable design is implemented to determine the initial design domain of the UAV frame. Second, topology optimization method based on inertia relief theory is used to transform the initial geometric model into the UAV frame structure. Third, process design is considered to improve the manufacturability and maintainability of the UAV frame. Finally, dynamic drop test is used to validate the crashworthiness of the UAV frame. Therefore, a lightweight UAV frame structure composed of thin-walled parts can be obtained and the design period can be greatly reduced via the proposed method.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 4045
Author(s):  
David Menéndez Arán ◽  
Ángel Menéndez

A design method was developed for automated, systematic design of hydrokinetic turbine rotor blades. The method coupled a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver to estimate the power output of a given turbine with a surrogate-based constrained optimization method. This allowed the characterization of the design space while minimizing the number of analyzed blade geometries and the associated computational effort. An initial blade geometry developed using a lifting line optimization method was selected as the base geometry to generate a turbine blade family by multiplying a series of geometric parameters with corresponding linear functions. A performance database was constructed for the turbine blade family with the CFD solver and used to build the surrogate function. The linear functions were then incorporated into a constrained nonlinear optimization algorithm to solve for the blade geometry with the highest efficiency. A constraint on the minimum pressure on the blade could be set to prevent cavitation inception.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-73
Author(s):  
Sofia Thunberg ◽  
Tom Ziemke

AbstractInteraction between humans and robots will benefit if people have at least a rough mental model of what a robot knows about the world and what it plans to do. But how do we design human-robot interactions to facilitate this? Previous research has shown that one can change people’s mental models of robots by manipulating the robots’ physical appearance. However, this has mostly not been done in a user-centred way, i.e. without a focus on what users need and want. Starting from theories of how humans form and adapt mental models of others, we investigated how the participatory design method, PICTIVE, can be used to generate design ideas about how a humanoid robot could communicate. Five participants went through three phases based on eight scenarios from the state-of-the-art tasks in the RoboCup@Home social robotics competition. The results indicate that participatory design can be a suitable method to generate design concepts for robots’ communication in human-robot interaction.


2010 ◽  
Vol 37-38 ◽  
pp. 9-13
Author(s):  
Hong Xin Wang ◽  
Ning Dai

A non-iterative design method about high order intermittent mechanisms is presented. The mathematical principle is that a compound function produced by two basic functions, and then one to three order derivatives of the compound function are all zeroes when one order derivative of each basic function is zero at the same moment. The design method is that a combined mechanism is constructed by six bars; the displacement functions of the front four-bar and back four-bar mechanisms are separately built, let one order derivatives of two displacement functions separately be zero at the same moment, and then get geometrical relationships and solution on the intermittent mechanism. A design example shows that this method is simpler and transmission characteristics are better than optimization method.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spyros A. Kinnas ◽  
Kyungjung Cha ◽  
Seungnam Kim

A comprehensive method which determines the most efficient propeller blade shapes for a given axisymmetric hull to travel at a desired speed, is presented. A nonlinear optimization method is used to design the blade, the shape of which is defined by a 3-D B-spline polygon, with the coordinates of the B-spline control points being the parameters to be optimized for maximum propeller efficiency, for given effective wake and propeller thrust. The performance of the propeller within the optimization scheme is assessed by a vortex-lattice method (VLM). To account fully for the hull/propeller interaction, the effective wake to the propeller and the hull resistance are determined by analyzing the designed propeller geometry by the VLM, coupled with a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solver. The optimization method re-designs the optimum blade with the updated effective wake and propeller thrust (taken to be equal to the updated hull resistance), and the procedure continues until convergence of the propeller performance. The current approach does not require knowledge of the wake fraction or the thrust deduction factor, both of which must be estimated a priori in traditional propeller design. The method is applied for a given hull to travel at a desired speed, and the optimum blades are designed for various combinations of propeller diameter and RPM, in the case of open and ducted propellers with provided duct shapes. The effects of the propeller diameter and RPM on the designed propeller thrust, torque, propeller efficiency, and required power are presented and compared with each other in the case of open and ducted propellers. The present approach is shown to provide guidance on the design of propulsors for underwater vehicles, and is applicable to the design of propulsors for surface ships.


Author(s):  
Mads Baandrup ◽  
Ole Sigmund ◽  
Niels Aage

<p>This work applies a ultra large scale topology optimization method to study the optimal structure of bridge girders in cable supported bridges.</p><p>The current classic orthotropic box girder designs are limited in further development and optimiza­ tion, and suffer from substantial fatigue issues. A great disadvantage of the orthotropic girder is the loads being carried one direction at a time, thus creating stress hot spots and fatigue problems. Hence, a new design concept has the potential to solve many of the limitations in the current state­ of-the-art.</p><p>We present a design method based on ultra large scale topology optimization. The highly detailed structures and fine mesh-discretization permitted by ultra large scale topology optimization reveal new design features and previously unseen eff ects. The results demonstrate the potential of gener­ ating completely different design solutions for bridge girders in cable supported bridges, which dif­ fer significantly from the classic orthotropic box girders.</p><p>The overall goal of the presented work is to identify new and innovative, but at the same time con­ structible and economically reasonable, solutions tobe implemented into the design of future cable supported bridges.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 635-635
Author(s):  
Bilge elik and Nil Acaral Bilge elik and Nil Acaral

Cellulose in the fibrous structure, which is the main structural component in the cell wall of plants, was formed by the combination of three thousand or more glucose molecules and was a natural polymer synthesized by many living microorganisms. In this study, it was aimed to observe the performance of carrot pulp physically added to water-based coating to increase the viscosity of the coatings. In addition, volcanic lava stone (red pumice stone) and perlite stone were added to the coating to improve its properties that heat transfer, adhesion, hydrophobicity, corrosion resistance. The effect of cellulose-based material on the viscosity of the coating was determined using the Design Expert Optimization Method. In this experimental design method, the experimental set was created to be “carrot pulp, volcanic lava stone, and perlite stone” and additives was added as 0-6% by weight of the coating. By using this method, the most suitable process parameters were determined, and the effects of the additives added to the coating were examined, comparatively. As a result, it was found that cellulose derived organic additives and other additives improved the various properties of coating and could be evaluated for industrial coatings.


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