TROBS

A biological inspired robot

authored by

Jan Schmitt, Philipp Last, Christian Löchte, Annika Raatz, Jürgen Hesselbach

Abstract

This contribution presents a biological inspired robot, called Trunk Robot Braunschweig (TROBS). The structural shape of the robot is motivated by a trunk mechanism, where the robot is actuated by NiTi shape memory alloy (SMA) wires, placed according to the agonist-antagonist principle of muscles. The robot has a modular structure, the single segments are connected by compliant joints, whose arrangement permit a variable degree of freedom (DoF) depending on the number of segments. The joints have a similar working principle as revolute joints. In order to show the functionality of the robot, the mechanical structure, the benefits of compliant joints as well as a method of kinematic modelling are presented. Another focus is placed on the actuation principle. The robot is actuated by SMA wires formed like springs, which provide advantages in design as well as in control aspects. Due to the high modularity of the mechanism, the robot is arbitrarily extendable and so adoptable for several applications.

External Organisation(s)

Technische Universität Braunschweig

Type

Conference contribution

Pages

51-56

No. of pages

6

Publication date

12.2009

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Human-Computer Interaction, Biomaterials

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBIO.2009.5420632 (Access: Unknown)