无需外接气源的便携式软气动机械臂,可灵活适应复杂环境。
UMArm: Untethered, Modular, Portable, Soft Pneumatic Arm
- 将自调节气阀集成于肌腱式执行器内,实现轻量化与去缆化
- 整机无外部气源依赖,承载力强且定位精度高
- 适合康复辅助、野外作业等移动场景,可快速重构为爬行机器人
机器人手臂在现代工业中至关重要,但其在非结构化环境中的适应性仍有限。气动驱动的软体机械臂具有更好的环境适应性和人机交互安全性,但现有系统受限于自由度低、精度差、负载能力弱及依赖笨重外部压力调节器。本文提出一种新型气动驱动刚柔混合臂——UMArm,通过在轻质刚性骨架上密集集成高功率重量比、自调节的麦金贝尔(McKibben)执行器,将阀门与控制器直接嵌入执行器内部,避免了单独供气管路和外部调节器,显著降低系统重量与复杂度。该设计实现了完全无缆化运行、高负载能力、高精度及方向可调的柔顺性。通过穿戴式助手机器人实验验证了其便携性,并将系统重构为仿毛毛虫机器人展示了其多功能性。结果表明,这种高自由度、无需外部调节器的气动驱动系统在真实非结构化环境中具有巨大应用潜力。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Robotic arms are essential to modern industries, however, their adaptability to unstructured environments remains limited. Soft robotic arms, particularly those actuated pneumatically, offer greater adaptability in unstructured environments and enhanced safety for human-robot interaction. However, current pneumatic soft arms are constrained by limited degrees of freedom, precision, payload capacity, and reliance on bulky external pressure regulators. In this work, a novel pneumatically driven rigid-soft hybrid arm, ``UMArm'', is presented. The shortcomings of pneumatically actuated soft arms are addressed by densely integrating high-force-to-weight-ratio, self-regulated McKibben actuators onto a lightweight rigid spine structure. The modified McKibben actuators incorporate valves and controllers directly inside, eliminating the need for individual pressure lines and external regulators, significantly reducing system weight and complexity. Full untethered operation, high payload capacity, precision, and directionally tunable compliance are achieved by the UMArm. Portability is demonstrated through a wearable assistive arm experiment, and versatility is showcased by reconfiguring the system into an inchworm robot. The results of this work show that the high-degree-of-freedom, external-regulator-free pneumatically driven arm systems like the UMArm possess great potential for real-world unstructured environments.
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