Modulation of Magnetorheological Fluid Flow in Soft Robots Using Electropermanent Magnets
Modulation of Magnetorheological Fluid Flow in Soft Robots Using Electropermanent Magnets
复制标题
DOI：
10.1109/lra.2022.3147873
复制
发表时间：
2022
影响因子：
5.2
通讯作者：
Kevin McDonald;Lorenzo Kinnicutt;Anna Maria Moran;Tommaso Ranzani
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kevin McDonald;Lorenzo Kinnicutt;Anna Maria Moran;Tommaso Ranzani
磁流变液在磁场作用下变硬，是控制软驱动器充气的有效手段。然而，过去的努力主要集中在二元控制上。由于很难在不需要大量电力的情况下产生足够的磁场，比例控制方案已经步履蹒跚。电磁永磁体(EPM)为这一问题提供了一种解决方案，因为它们可以产生与永磁体在大小上相似的磁场，它们可以进行电子控制，但它们不需要任何电力来保持状态。在本文中，我们使用EPM来控制磁流变液的材料特性，使我们能够调节软执行器内的压力。我们通过弯曲力和阻塞力测试对几类软执行器的这一行为进行了演示和量化。然后，我们展示了独立控制以二进制和全调制方式运行的多自由度系统的致动的能力，从而向高度可重编程的自主软机器人的发展迈出了重要的一步。
Magnetorheological (MR) fluids, which stiffen in the presence of magnetic fields, have been shown to be an effective means for controlling the inflation of soft actuators. However, past efforts have largely focused on binary control. Proportional control schemes have faltered due to the difficulty in producing sufficient magnetic fields without requiring large amounts of electrical power. Electropermanent magnets (EPMs) offer one solution to this issue, since they can produce magnetic fields which are similar in magnitude to permanent magnets, they can be controlled electrically, but they do not require any power to hold their state. In this paper, we use EPMs to control the material properties of an MR fluid, allowing us to modulate the pressure within soft actuators. We demonstrate and quantify this behavior for several classes of soft actuators via bending and blocked force testing. We then demonstrate the ability to independently control the actuation of multiple-DoFs systems operating in both a binary and fully modulated manner, thus providing an important step towards the development of highly reprogrammable, autonomous soft robots.