Robotics

Micro-linkages for Compliant Material

Material Unit Cell

Lucas Shaw and Prof. Jonathan Hopkins show the micro-architecture of an actively compliant material. Micro-actuators within the unit cells of an assembly are coordinated to reshape the assembly as desired. This was presented as part of the 2015 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences in Boston, MA, August 2-5. The video below shows what this assembly can do.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPXMtlP_OAQ[/youtube]

Actuating Morphing Linkages

Target Profiles for Morphing Linkage

Lawrence Funke and Prof. James Schmiedeler of the University of Notre Dame Locomotion and Biomechanics Lab show that the movement of a morphing linkage through its target profiles can be improved by coordinating actuation of the sub-chains. This was presented at the Mechanisms and Robotics Conference which was part of the 2015 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, August 2-5, in Boston, MA. The video below shows the improvement obtained by moving from 1 to 3 coordinated actuators.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3DwHyRAh08[/youtube]

Rolling Robot at SUTD

Virgo 2 SUTD

A research team including Profs. GimSong Soh, Kristin Wood and Kevin Otto at Robotics Innovation Lab at the Singapore University of Technology and Design has developed a rolling robot about the size of a baseball. The design and motion planning of this robot, Virgo 2.0, was presented at the Mechanisms and Robotics Conference which was part of the 2015 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, August 2-5, in Boston, MA. A demonstration of the Virgo 2.0 moving through a figure eight path around obstacles is shown in the video below.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9nZbOlhSqw[/youtube]

Interesting Planar Robot at Laval

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vp1ELEtDN4[/youtube]
Students of Prof. Clement Gosselin at the Laval University Robotics Laboratory demonstrate a four-degree of freedom planar robot. I particularly like the demonstration of its use as a gripper that does a cartwheel just for fun.

Tensegrity Robotics at UC Berkeley

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwYXfijMet0[/youtube]
Students in Prof. Alice Agogino’s Berkeley Emergent Space Technologies Laboratory, the BEST Lab, working on motion planning for their tensegrity robot.

Origami Art at BYU

Origami Art BYU

Mechanical engineering students in Prof. Larry Howell’s Compliant Mechanisms Research Group designed and constructed this kinetic structure for the BYU Museum of Art. It illustrates paper folding known as origami.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e28J066oGY[/youtube]