Collaborative Research: Constraint-based Compliant Mechanism Design using Virtual Reality as a Design Interface

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This objective of this collaborative research project is so that researchers at Iowa State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology can look at ways to improve the design and manufacturing of compliant mechanisms through the use of virtual reality. Unlike the traditional rigid-link mechanisms, compliant mechanisms achieve motion guidance via the compliance and deformation of the mechanism's members. Design of compliant mechanisms currently occurs through the work of two distinctly different research communities: the mechanism design community, which bases designs on numerical simulation and optimization, e.g. topology synthesis, of basic design parameters, and the precision machine design community, where design engineers rely largely upon constraint-based methods that are heavily dependant upon the experience of the designer. Virtual reality will be used to provide a three-dimensional immersive design environment where compliant mechanism design can be achieved using mathematical rigor coupled with a designer's intuitive understanding of mechanism mechanics to design three-dimensional compliant mechanisms.This work will change the way students, scientists, and engineers think about, conceptualize, and engineer compliant mechanisms for precision instruments, MEMS, NEMS, compliant robotics and low-cost mechanisms for consumer products, by establishing an engineering framework for design of compliant mechanisms based on constraint-based compliant mechanism design theory and virtual reality. Virtual reality, combined with powerful and rational constraint-based design methods, will provide a natural three-dimensional design environment where engineers can rapidly explore the design space to generate constraint-based design concepts (topology), evaluate the concepts and perform detailed design. The resulting design framework will allow a broader group of engineers to design complex compliant mechanisms, giving them new options to draw upon when searching for design solutions to critical problems, resulting in novel mechanism solutions for manufacturing and product design.