Equipping new SMA artificial muscles with controllable MRF exoskeletons for robotic manipulators and grippers
Equipping new SMA artificial muscles with controllable MRF exoskeletons for robotic manipulators and grippers
Shape memory alloy (SMA) wires are one of the widely used materials for soft artificial muscles. However, SMA artificial muscles have two problems, including limited load holding ability due to their soft nature and slow response due to their long cooling time. The main contributions of this article are the developments of a controllable magnetorheological fluid (MRF) exoskeleton and a fast-response magnetorheological elastomer-SMA artificial muscle as effective approaches to solve the above-mentioned problems. The controllable MRF exoskeleton provides variable stiffness so that it can be flexible enough to allow the manipulator to bend as required while stiff enough to hold up heavy loads. This new artificial muscle accelerates the cooling speed of SMA wire to shorten its recovery time. Our tests proved that this new artificial muscle, compared with conventional SMA artificial muscles, could improve the recovery speed by up to 333%. The new artificial muscle and the MRF exoskeleton assembled a robotic manipulator and then a robotic gripper with three of those manipulators. The experimental tests verified that the loading capability of the new gripper had increased by 440% compared to the pure SMA gripper.
Controllable magnetorheological fluid (MRF) exoskeleton, magnetorheological elastomer (MRE)-shape memory alloy (SMA) artificial muscle, robotic manipulator
4585-4596
Yang, Jian
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Sun, Shuaishuai
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Yang, Xiaoyan
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Ma, Yufan
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Yun, Guolin
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Chang, Ruizhe
f3613813-43ff-4ba4-bcab-1dcba64d5ae3
Tang, Shi Yang
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Nakano, Masami
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Li, Zhixiong
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Du, Haiping
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Zhang, Shiwu
da008f91-71fa-42fb-879e-68b91429e1d6
Li, Weihua
e2555036-0e48-425a-afeb-db6ffba5238e
12 April 2022
Yang, Jian
7a695cd0-9647-46fc-ae8c-734804515e0c
Sun, Shuaishuai
94afa956-f4bc-44b5-a5ce-23850fd51eda
Yang, Xiaoyan
e2b20d14-b9a3-4b93-aaa9-60b9e0769e17
Ma, Yufan
a7ffa827-7916-47a8-b79c-bcd112b0e25d
Yun, Guolin
240c3dc9-c224-41c0-8740-de165d1eb90b
Chang, Ruizhe
f3613813-43ff-4ba4-bcab-1dcba64d5ae3
Tang, Shi Yang
1d0f15c6-2a3e-4bad-a3d8-fc267db93ed4
Nakano, Masami
84539971-33b4-49dc-b44f-611178ef747d
Li, Zhixiong
321fab59-61c2-439c-9f0d-1da5caf33b18
Du, Haiping
f8e3ba9d-395c-4d08-a62b-3de98e4d6a99
Zhang, Shiwu
da008f91-71fa-42fb-879e-68b91429e1d6
Li, Weihua
e2555036-0e48-425a-afeb-db6ffba5238e
Yang, Jian, Sun, Shuaishuai, Yang, Xiaoyan, Ma, Yufan, Yun, Guolin, Chang, Ruizhe, Tang, Shi Yang, Nakano, Masami, Li, Zhixiong, Du, Haiping, Zhang, Shiwu and Li, Weihua
(2022)
Equipping new SMA artificial muscles with controllable MRF exoskeletons for robotic manipulators and grippers.
IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 27 (6), .
(doi:10.1109/TMECH.2022.3157329).
Abstract
Shape memory alloy (SMA) wires are one of the widely used materials for soft artificial muscles. However, SMA artificial muscles have two problems, including limited load holding ability due to their soft nature and slow response due to their long cooling time. The main contributions of this article are the developments of a controllable magnetorheological fluid (MRF) exoskeleton and a fast-response magnetorheological elastomer-SMA artificial muscle as effective approaches to solve the above-mentioned problems. The controllable MRF exoskeleton provides variable stiffness so that it can be flexible enough to allow the manipulator to bend as required while stiff enough to hold up heavy loads. This new artificial muscle accelerates the cooling speed of SMA wire to shorten its recovery time. Our tests proved that this new artificial muscle, compared with conventional SMA artificial muscles, could improve the recovery speed by up to 333%. The new artificial muscle and the MRF exoskeleton assembled a robotic manipulator and then a robotic gripper with three of those manipulators. The experimental tests verified that the loading capability of the new gripper had increased by 440% compared to the pure SMA gripper.
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Published date: 12 April 2022
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 51828503 and Grant 52005474, in part by JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up under Grant 19K23476, in part by the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Young Researcher B under Grant 20K14688, in part by the Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellowship under Grant 19F19712, and in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant WK2480000009
Publisher Copyright:
© 1996-2012 IEEE.
Keywords:
Controllable magnetorheological fluid (MRF) exoskeleton, magnetorheological elastomer (MRE)-shape memory alloy (SMA) artificial muscle, robotic manipulator
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 481921
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/481921
ISSN: 1083-4435
PURE UUID: fd14b1aa-1f57-4dda-a4dd-1c2ceaeaa3ae
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Date deposited: 13 Sep 2023 17:09
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 04:13
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Contributors
Author:
Jian Yang
Author:
Shuaishuai Sun
Author:
Xiaoyan Yang
Author:
Yufan Ma
Author:
Guolin Yun
Author:
Ruizhe Chang
Author:
Shi Yang Tang
Author:
Masami Nakano
Author:
Zhixiong Li
Author:
Haiping Du
Author:
Shiwu Zhang
Author:
Weihua Li
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