Ji Hua Laboratory, Engineering Research Center for Intelligent Robotics, Foshan, People's Republic of China.
Bioinspir Biomim. 2022 Nov 25;18(1). doi: 10.1088/1748-3190/aca197.
In complex and unpredictable environments or in situations of human-robot interaction, a soft and flexible robot performs more safely and is more impact resistant compared to a traditional rigid robot. To enable robots to have bionic features (flexibility, compliance and variable stiffness) similar to human joints, structures involving suspended tubercle tensegrity are researched. The suspended tubercle gives the joint compliance and flexibility by isolating two moving parts. The variable stiffness capacity is achieved by changing the internal stress of tensegrity through the simultaneous contraction or relaxation of the driving tendons. A wrist-inspired tensegrity-based bionic joint is proposed as a case study. It has variable stiffness and two rotations with a total of three degrees of freedom. Through theoretical derivation and simulation calculation in the NASA Tensegrity RobotToolkit (NTRT) simulator, the range of motion, stiffness adjustable capacity, and their interaction are studied. A prototype is built and tested under a motion capture system. The experimental result agrees well with the theoretical simulation. Our experiments show that the suspended tubercle-type tensegrity is flexible, the stiffness is adjustable and easy to control, and it has great potential for bionic joints.
在复杂和不可预测的环境中，或者在人机交互的情况下，与传统的刚性机器人相比，柔性和灵活的机器人执行任务更加安全，并且具有更好的抗冲击性。为了使机器人具有类似人类关节的仿生特性（灵活性、顺应性和可变性），研究了涉及悬浮结节张拉整体的结构。悬浮结节通过隔离两个运动部件来提供关节的顺应性和灵活性。通过同时收缩或放松驱动肌腱来改变张拉整体的内部应力，可以实现可变刚度能力。作为一个案例研究，提出了一种基于张拉整体的腕关节仿生关节。它具有可变刚度和两个旋转自由度，总共有三个自由度。通过在 NASA Tensegrity RobotToolkit (NTRT) 模拟器中的理论推导和仿真计算，研究了运动范围、可调刚度能力及其相互作用。在运动捕捉系统下构建并测试了一个原型。实验结果与理论模拟吻合较好。我们的实验表明，悬浮结节式张拉整体具有灵活性、可调节的刚度和易于控制的特点，在仿生关节方面具有巨大的潜力。
